


don't wanna study war no more

by hetzi_clutch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Military, Mindwiping, Other, basically yaz is mindwiped and the doctor has to get her back, dont @ me, i guess?, idk - Freeform, thasmin, themes of like war and stuff, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetzi_clutch/pseuds/hetzi_clutch
Summary: There are little things, fantasies and games that 214 invents to pass the time. One of them is that the prisoner in the blocks, with the strange blue coat and the odd, penetrating gaze, is somebody worth concerning herself with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay idk what this is. i wrote this in 3 days with no sleep and barely edited, so idk why at the same time i decided it would be a good idea to like, examine a bunch of difficult societal questions like, what is war. so, um. i tried my best.

“Hey 214, give us a hand.”

“Huh?” her head jolts up, then her eyes fall to the prisoner sagging between her two friends. Limp blond hair, stiff with blood, hangs over a face she can’t see. There’s a cloth tied tightly over her eyes—torn from the flannel roll they use to clean their weapons. Obviously caught in a hurry. Her coat hangs limply off her frame.

214 smiles and shakes her head.

“Can’t. I’m on guard duty.” For emphasis, she swings her rifle up, uses the muzzle to tap the machine gun mounted between sandbags in the window. Curiously, at the sound of her voice, the prisoner’s head jerks up, lips parting in hopeful surprise. As if she’s going to say something.

Then 535 pushes her head down roughly, and the words never leave her lips.

“No talking,” he growls, then flashes 214 a grin. She mouths ‘by the fence?’ and he nods. She returns his nod in solemn understanding, then shrugs.

“Sorry, but you know I can’t.”

“Yeah, cuz you really wanna drag her to the blocks, right?” 101 gives her a knowing look, and 214 just shrugs again.

“I mean, what can I do? Guard duty.”

“Fiiiiine.” 101 rolls her eyes, then catches 535’s eye and gestures to the prisoner. He yanks her upright and she stumbles for a moment, then catches her footing, only for 101 to stick a rifle muzzle in her back.

“C’mon sabo.”

The prisoner stiffens at the contact, then lets herself be pushed forward, past 214 and on through the winding bunker. As she brushes by, close enough for the tail of her coat to whisper over 214’s leg, she turns her head.

Her gaze is masked by the flannel rag, but her eyes seemed to peer directly into 214’s face. 214 draws back, surprised by the sheer brazenness. Since when did prisoners look anybody directly in the eye? She’d never seen a sabo do anything but slump forward with their head down, too scared of a bullet in the back or a cuff to the face to take a chance.

But this one, it seems, has no such fear.

214 stares for a moment, then hastily turns back to her window, to her job, hitching her rifle strap higher over her shoulder. 

_“What do you mean she’s gone?” Ryan asks, as the Doctor turns around and around in the crowded marketplace, sonic out though she doesn’t appear to be picking up anything. “Doctor, she can’t just be—“_

_“She is.” The Doctor jerks the sonic back, holds it up to her face, and peers close, eyes wide in what Ryan is starting to realize is barely suppressed panic. “She—there’s almost no teleportation signal, but—“_

_“Almost no,” Graham says, his voice painful with tentative hope. “You said almost. That means—“_

_“I’m not sure what it means yet, Graham,” the Doctor says, still staring, now frowning, at her sonic. There’s a deep crinkle of worry in her brow, tugging down the corners of her lips, and her jaw is tense as if she’s about to snap at someone. Ryan can feel that same tenseness in his own shoulders, his chest. He bounces on the soles of his feet, and suppresses the urge to hit something. There’s nothing to hit, anyway._

_“It could mean the signal fades a few light years from here.” The Doctor is still talking, still frowning. “It could mean it’s just a wisp, nothing worthwhile. I don’t know.”_

_“Yeah, but it’s still better than nothing,” Ryan points out, in a voice barely above a hiss. He can feel the frustration building, the desperation, and swallows it only because he can see the exact same feeling on the Doctor’s face._

_It won’t help anything, at the moment._

_“Do you at least know what it is?” Graham asks, and the Doctor almost shakes her head, then turns it into a tilt instead. A “well…”_

_“It could be a number of things,” she says. Her hand, Ryan notices, is white-knuckled around the sonic. She’s looking at it, he thinks, but barely seeing it. “But it looks like slave traders. No—hang on.”_

_Her eyes widen. She brings the sonic up, so close it’s almost touching her nose._

_“Tzanhani,” she breathes. Ryan has no idea what that means._

_“Yeah?” he prompts. “Well?”_

_The Doctor looks up, and he doesn’t like it at all. Her face is stricken, lines of old guilt he’s never seen before running through her face. How can a person, he wonders, age in the space of a second?_

_“Tzanhani,” she says again, and with a sudden, violent movement, shoves the screwdriver into her pocket. Her face has gone hard, all the planes angled. “They’re a—well, I wasn’t off about the slave traders. Only they don’t make slaves, exactly. They make soldiers. Nab people off the streets, use them in their own armies so they don't have to bother their own civilians.”_

_“Soldiers?” Ryan asks in disbelief. “You mean Yaz—?”_

_“Yeah.” The Doctor sucks in a breath, nostrils flaring. Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, and she lets it out, slow and, strangely, tired. “Yeah, Ryan. Soldiers.”_

_“But she can’t be a soldier,” Graham objects. “She doesn’t know anything about that, and you and me both know Yaz ain’t going to agree to something like that, not if she can—”_

_“She can’t,” The Doctor cuts him off. Her eyes are still closed. “She won’t have a choice.”_

_“Wha—” Ryan’s mind is spinning. His heart is pounding with secondhand fear. “What do you mean she won’t have a choice?”_

_For a moment, the Doctor doesn’t respond. Then, slowly, she opens her eyes and looks directly at him. In the depths of her eyes, nowhere near the surface, Ryan thinks he can see tears. Or maybe he’s just imagining._

_“It means,” she says, every word careful as a house of cards, “That we need to find her.”_

“Keep moving!”

“I can’t.” 214 gasps and collapses against the hard-cracked ground, rifle cradled to her face, puffs of dust rising up with the contact. It’s too hot to lie against, and stones are pressing into her face, her stomach, but she doesn’t care. There’s a prickly brush needling into her elbow. She doesn’t bother to move it.

“What did you say?” a shadow falls over her. She squints, then looks up into the face of her commander. Snarling, dark hair and tanned, sunburnt skin, his eyes angry slits. Constantly. She’d thought she’d seen him smile once, but it might have been a trick of the light. 

“I can’t,” she says again, and feels her entire body ache in agreement. She feels rubbed raw, elbows cracked and bleeding, knees bruised and skin swollen, tender, from the constant contact against the ground. It’s hot. She can feel the heat soaking through her uniform, her vest. When she tips her head forward, her too-big helmet falls over her eyes, thunking against the ground. 

An angry huff comes from above, barely concealed fury. “You mean you _don’t want to.”_

“No, I—” she tries, then cuts off, because he won’t believe her. Everything hurts, and now the failure is smarting at her too, digging its guilty claws deep into her chest. She thinks about moving forward, dragging herself across the rough ground, littered with digging pebbles and brush sharp enough to slice skin, and she wants to cry.

It’s hot, and they’ve been crawling for ages. And she knows that when they’re done, they’ll get up and run, and it’ll hurt, and then they’ll crawl again and that will hurt too, and it won’t stop being hot until the night falls and they go to sleep, only to be roused by a surprise night exercise. Which means more pain. More torment.

She doesn’t know why she’s doing this.

“I want to go home,” she whispers to herself, which is stupid because she doesn’t know where home is. But the homesickness washes over her anyway, heavy and fragile, like tears about to burst, and all she can think is that she wants a drink of water. Not the stinking, hot water they drink from the canteens, but cool, fresh water, with ice in it maybe. 

The shadow stretches over her, and she hears the thump of a knee against the ground. When she looks up, it’s into the face of her commander, close enough to make out the failed mustache above his upper lip, the disgusted twist of his mouth. He looks like he could spit on her, she thinks, then walk away.

“214,” he says, in a voice quiet with constrained rage. “Where is your home?”

“I—” she knows the answer to this. They all know the answer to this. She hates it anyway. “Gone. It’s gone. I know—”

He cuts off her reasoning, her excuses, which is perfect because to let her wax on would have been dangerously close to having a conversation. There are no conversations between the recruits and the commanders, no possibility of familiarity. There’s barely familiarity amongst the recruits themselves, rag-tag groups formed together every cycle, plucked from the remnants of their destroyed homeworlds. Destroyed by the enemy.

“Your home is gone,” he says, with such absolute assurance that she can’t possibly disbelieve it. “The Algori destroyed your home, like they destroyed the home of every person here, including mine. Now you have a chance to keep that from happening again. And you’re choosing to quit because you’re scared to crawl a few more meters?”

He speaks with the quiet confidence of somebody who is not currently pressed against the hot desert ground, pebbles digging into their cheek. 214 raises her head, sees the endpoint they’ve marked off, and knows he’s feeding her a baldfaced lie. The endpoint—the rock they’re meant to reach—is at least 500 meters away, or another hour of crawling. At least. Her heart sinks to think of it.

But 214 has no other option. She doesn’t even have the option to quit, despite her commander’s dressed up motivation. She has nowhere else to go.

So she puts her head down, swallows tears of despair—it will hurt, is all she can think, it _already hurts_ —and starts to drag herself across the rocky ground, biting her tongue as pebbles dig into her elbows, as her rifle slams down on her thumb for the dozenth time. 

Her commander doesn’t bother with wasted motivation. By the time she’s made it a meter, he’s gone, off to berate another recruit. There are no kind touches here.

_“Doctor, where are we going?” Ryan asks as he clings to the edge of the console. The Doctor doesn’t seem to hear him at first, too busy pressing all those buttons he’s long since been forbidden from touching, but after a moment she answers all the same._

_“Somewhere very dangerous.” She pulls a lever down as she speaks, then lunges across the console to jab a button. “You two probably won’t be able to come with me, I’m sorry to say.”_

_“What?” Twin gasps of disbelief._

_“Don’t even think about it, Doc,” Graham says. “We’re coming, and that’s final.”_

_“You come and you might be dead,” the Doctor replies shortly. It’s the terseness of it, the simple fact that stuns Ryan into silence. Not Graham, however._

_“Oh, and you won’t be?” he raises an eyebrow, even as he clutches a white pillar. “Doctor, that’s every single one of our little adventures. We’ve learned to take the risk. We can handle it.”_

_The Doctor doesn’t look at him, but she stops, for a moment, hesitating over the controls. Then she sighs, shoulders sagging, and lets her hands press against the console._

_“I don’t want you to,” she whispers. “I know you can handle it, but—I need you safe, in my mind. I can’t be worrying, or I’ll—I’ll—”_

_She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to. Graham and Ryan stare, and silence reigns. The TARDIS rocks, surprisingly gentle in its trip through the time vortex._

_“Give us something to do then.” Ryan breaks the silence, and the Doctor’s head jerks up, eyebrows rising in surprise. “Doctor, there’s got to be some way we can help. If you don’t want us to come with you, use us as—as a distraction, or something. I dunno.”_

_“Oh, like that isn’t worse?” the Doctor doesn’t look at him. She stares at the console, blankly. Hopeless, maybe. “Ryan, there’s nothing you or Graham can—”_

_And then she stops, because something is beeping. She looks up and leans forward, squinting at a monitor._

_“What is it?” Ryan asks after a moment of uneasy silence._

_“Risk alert,” the Doctor says without taking her eyes off the screen. “Usually keep it off for fun, but I want to know exactly what we’re getting into.”_

_She’s frowning by now, and when she reaches out and taps the screen, something pops up that forces a soft intake of breath. Graham and Ryan stare._

_“You usually keep it off—” Graham begins, only for the Doctor to raise a hand and shoo him into silence._

_“Right,” she says, and abruptly turns around, eyes glinting with something hard, something sharp. Ice, but it’s not cold. Only dangerous. “You two aren’t going out there. But you aren’t doing nothing, either. I need you here.”_

_“Here,” Ryan says. “As in…the TARDIS?”_

_“Exactly.” The Doctor bobs her head in a perfect facsimile of her usual enthusiasm. Almost. “I’m linking the sonic to my TARDIS, and you lot are going to keep watch on this end. I’m going to send a set of coordinates on this monitor—” she jabs her finger to the one she’d been peering at moments before— “And you two need to enter it into here—” she gestures to a keyboard just below— “And press that button.” She points to a large green button right next to the keyboard. “The TARDIS will lock on to the coordinates, and come pick us up. It’s like dropping a pin. Only I don’t trust the TARDIS to do it on her own, she’s a bit funky with short hops.”_

_An indignant beep comes from the console. Both Ryan and Graham look to it, but the Doctor doesn’t seem to notice._

_“I’m going to get Yaz,” she plows ahead. “I’ve gotten a signal from her. It’s weak, but—” her face twists— “It’ll work. It has to.”_

_She seems to be convincing herself more than the others._

_“Right, okay,” Ryan says. “Got the plan. Only—why can’t we come? Where are you going?”_

_He finishes his sentence just as the TARDIS rocks to a halt, the familiar wheezing echoing around the console room. They listen to it in expectant silence, the kind that comes right before danger—when the mind is jittering, and the blood is pumping, and there’s not much to do except go._

_The Doctor takes a deep breath before answering. When she does, she chooses each word carefully, as if she’s slotting puzzle pieces into the perfect picture of discouraging reassurance._

_“I’m going to get Yaz,” she says simply. “More specifically, I’m walking out those doors—” she jerks her thumb over her shoulder— “And right into the arms of the Tzanhani empire. Which is where Yaz will be. Hopefully.”_

_“So you’re going to get yourself captured,” Graham states flatly. The Doctor looks to him, and gives a grim smile._

_“Quickest way to get inside.”_

_Graham grimaces. “Not the safest, you ask me. And you just expect us to wait?”_

_“I most definitely do,” she retorts, and when he goes to protest, cuts him off with a sharp look. “Because I’ll tell you this, Graham. The Tzanhani empire has some of the most well-militarized, well-protected systems in the galaxy. Which means that once I get inside, I probably won’t be getting out. Not without your help.”_

_She looks between them, as if waiting for them to disagree. Neither do. So she sucks in a breath, and squares her shoulders. “So. Do I have it?”_

_Ryan and Graham look at her. Then, they look to each other. One by one, they nod. The Doctor watches them, and a grin breaks across her face. It’s not a nice grin; her eyes are chilly, and her teeth glint too-white._

_“Excellent,” she says. “Now. Let’s get a shift on, shall we?”_

“214! Get over here!” 

214 tenses at the too-familiar yell, then forces herself to relax. It’s not training anymore, she reminds herself. That hellish year is over, and not a moment too soon. Even her commanders have softened slightly, yelling only to grab attention, and barely to berate. Not to humiliate, anymore.

Most of the time.

214 turns around, and hefts her rifle, just in case she gets called out for letting it hang too low. She’s still getting used to the extra weight of a loaded rifle, the slight trepidation that comes from walking around with the power of life and death in her hands. It won’t go off, she _knows_ ; there are too many safeguards in place. But just the knowledge of it, the potential sitting in her hands, is intimidating.

But they are on the line, after all.

“214!” her commander calls, annoyance piercing his tone, and she winces.

“Yes, sir!” she jogs over, stops a respectful distance away, and doesn’t salute, though her fingers twitch to do so. Saluting is forbidden on the line, she remembers from their many briefings. Salute, and it’s the best way to give your commander a bullet straight to the head. 

And she doesn’t hate him that much.

Her commander eyes 214 with the slight disdain that tells her he hasn’t yet decided she’s a soldier. She doesn’t take much offense because, if she’s being honest, she doesn’t feel like one either. There are too many tears in her wake, too many nights curled up from homesickness and days spent wishing she could give in, wishing she could drop, wishing she were _allowed_ to simply say no. She’s still not sure what makes the change from a recruit to a soldier, and she has a feeling the mysterious line has something to do with it, but she hasn’t gotten that far yet.

It’s their first day, and they’re still unpacking.

“See those mattresses?” her commander jerks his thumb over his shoulder, and 214 follows his gaze, spies the thin foam mattresses stacked high next to the line of jeeps parked precariously in what little open space is available in their new base.

Well, base is stretching it. It’s a bunker, really, a maze of concrete-lined tunnels that dig into the little hill they’re perched atop of, and break out into one-man outposts, barely more than windowed openings in the side of the hill, from which machine guns jut. The hill is surrounded by barbed wire, and enclosed by a rusty gate next to which a guard already stands, sweating in full kit. The outposts set into the hill are manned as well, by several of 214’s squadmates. They take up the task with the fearful sort of pride that comes with actually, finally, doing something _real._

214, meanwhile, is unloading the jeeps. 

“Yes, sir,” she replies, and forces herself not to wrinkle her nose, even though she knows what he’s about to say.

“Distribute them,” he grunts, and sweeps a hand behind him, where the mouth of a concrete-lined tunnel yawns. The inside, 214 can see, is barely lit.

“Uh, yes sir,” she replies, and tries not to trudge as she turns to do so. She should be used to it, she figures. She’s long since realized that the army mainly consists of carrying things around. Loading and unloading them. Taking them apart, and setting them back up again.

It’s not exactly _glamorous._

She’s halfway through the pile, ferrying mattresses between the dimly lit barracks—barely more than concrete squares of space—located deep underneath the hill, when she receives a call to order on her radio watch. A briefing, in the sparse open space aboveground. She drops the last mattress she’s carrying onto an empty cot with some relief, and follows the call.

“Alright, come to order!” she reaches aboveground as the final call comes through, and drops in with her squadmates—minus those on guard duty—just as the platoon commander steps up. Immediately, the entire platoon falls silent.

He steps up with the easy of slouch of somebody who doesn’t need to look polished because he knows what he’s doing. His uniform is dirty, worn in, and he’s got brown hair and the beginnings of a beard he’s technically not allowed to grow. His rifle hangs loosely from a strap off his shoulders, and he clasps his hands together in an officious manner.

“Platoon 5353.” He growls it with the firm tones of practiced command, and nobody makes a sound. “I’m your new line commander, Lieutenant 467. And when I say new, of course, I mean new to you.” He chuckles. “As for _new_ new—I’ll hand that title to you. Tell me, how many of you have been on the line before?”

Nobody raises their hand. They simply sit, like scared children on their first day of kindergarten. 214 stares at the sea of helmets in front of her, identical to her own, and fights the sudden urge to laugh. They really are like children on their first day of kindergarten.

She racks her brains, trying to recall just where she knows the word kindergarten from, but it fails to come. Something from her homeworld, she assumes. A whisper of her life before the Algori stole her memory, along with everything else.

“Hmmm. Nobody.” Lieutenant 467 pretends to be surprised, though she knows he isn’t. New recruits always go up to the line together. It’s tradition. “Then you all have a lot to learn.”

There’s a murmur of agreement, muted with trepidation. The lieutenant smiles, a rather wolfish smile, and his hands, clasped together, tighten. 

“Well,” he says. “I’ll promise you one thing. By the time you’re rotated off this line, each one of you will claim the title of soldier. Not recruit. Soldier.”

He pauses. Lets it hang in the air. “That being said, not all of you may come home. But you’ll be soldiers nonetheless.”

There’s a collective intake of breath at his words, a sharp rumble of fear. Like a slap in the face; _this is real._

214 doesn’t think about that, because she’s been thinking about that the entire way there. If there’s one thing she’s learned in training, it’s that war will probably be twice as ugly and dirty and awful as anything her commanders have thrown at her, and so the lieutenant’s words don’t exactly phase her. 

She does, however, wonder where exactly that home is he’s referring to.

_She bids goodbye to Ryan and Graham, and goes for a stroll._

_It’s not much of a stroll._

_There’s a fence, which stretches seemingly randomly across rolling green hills and copses of trees, all earthlike, all familiar. The Tzanhani, the Doctor remembers, are very nostalgic. Terraform everything they can. Even the trees, when she stops to examine them, appear to be stunningly close to earthen species._

_She shakes her head in awe, and moves on._

_There are villages on what she knows to be the Algori side, half-hidden behind a stretch of trees, and she makes her way carefully to that part of the fence, because it’s the most likely. Most likely for her to be there, most likely for a patrol to meet her. The best meeting spot._

_Now all she has to do is wait._

_It doesn’t take long. All of fifteen minutes, in which the Doctor spends her time trying to decide if the blueish apples hanging from one of those trees are actually related to Granny Smith, when a shout from behind pulls her up short._

_“Halt! Hands up!”_

_The Doctor spins around and, for once, does exactly as the soldier says. Actually, it’s two soldiers, and they’re running towards her, helmets bobbing and vests jerking with each footstep. Old, ill-fitting equipment. She can’t say she’s surprised. It’s a distant outpost they’ve landed at, one of the minor planets. Skirmishes, mostly. Nothing too dangerous._

_Hopefully._

_They stop a few meters from her, chests heaving with exertion, and level rifles right down her nose. She’s not sure which muzzle to stare down, so she decides arbitrarily on the left one. It belongs to a man—or rather, a boy, for he can’t be more than nineteen. His face is pale beneath his helmet, his chin straps hanging loosely, too big for his young face._

_“Don’t move!” he says, and she almost snaps off a cheery remark about how she hasn’t, actually, before deciding it’s not in her best interest. Instead she just jerks her hands up higher, watches them twitch nervously with the movement._

_“You, take off your coat and lift your shirt,” the boy says. The Doctor shuffles away a grimace, but does as he says, letting her coat drop to the ground as she tugs her shirts loose and lifts them up. She circles on the boy’s command, waits for what seems like an exorbitant amount of time, and nearly lets out a sigh of relief when he says, “Alright, drop it.”_

_Swiftly she tucks her shirts back into her trousers, and stoops automatically to pick up her coat, only to be stopped by twin rifle muzzles, jammed straight into her face, or nearly so._

_“We didn’t say you could put that back on,” the boy says, and the Doctor freezes, then slowly unclenches her fingers from the hood._

_“101, check her coat.” The girl nods—oh god, are they really called numbers?—and steps froward, snagging the coat from the ground. She plunges her hand into the pocket, and her eyes widen._

_“Hey, she’s got some kind of—” and she pulls out the sonic screwdriver._

_And that’s when the Doctor realizes that she has made a very big mistake._

_“Actually, I need—” she goes for it without thinking, or perhaps she’s thinking too little of them, thinking of them like children, not that it matters either way; the moment she lunges for the screwdriver, the boy swings his rifle at her head, half-panicked, and the muzzle slams into her face._

_Stars burst in front of her eyes. Sickening pain crashes through her head. She’s aware, vaguely, of sinking to her knees, and she doesn’t think she blacks out, but then the next thing she remembers is looking up dizzily into the faces of the two soldiers standing over her._

_There’s something wet, sliding down the side of her head. A moment later it clicks that it must be blood._

_“Finish searching her,” the boy tells the girl, and the girl complies, feeling over her arms, patting down her waist, checking for weapons. She has none, not that it matters, because the only important thing on her person is the sonic screwdriver, and they’ve taken that._

_“Can I have my coat back,” she slurs, and sees them trade an uncertain look._

_“It’s empty,” the boy says._

_The girl shrugs. “I don’t want to carry it.”_

_The boy hesitates, then shrugs. The girl shoves the coat roughly into the Doctor’s arms, and she hurries to put it on, weaving slightly._

_“C’mon,” the boy growls, brave now that she’s bleeding on her knees. “Get up, sabo.”_

_“You think she’s a sabo?” the girl asks and the boy snorts._

_“Bet my pay on it. Look, she’s by the fence, ain’t she? Got a weapon on her, sneaking around. Definitely a sabo. Probably scouting things out for the Algorians.”_

_“Oh man.” The girl’s eyes are wide, her voice low, impressed by their own success. Well, pseudo success. “If she’s a sabo scout, that means the LT might be right about the attack. 535, this is big.”_

_“Yeah.” The boy sounds cautiously excited as well. “But first we gotta get her back to base.”_

_The Doctor feels, more than she sees, the rifle pressing into her shoulder. “C’mon, Sabo. On your feet. Or, wait—101, we gotta cover her eyes. You got anything?”_

_“Huh? Oh, wait—” the Doctor’s chin, by this point, has sunk low, and she doesn’t look, but listens as the girl fumbles through her pockets, then lets out a triumphant cry. “This’ll work, right?”_

_“Sure.” Someone steps forward, and callused fingers draw a soft cloth—flannel, she thinks—over her eyes, knotting it tightly at the back. When she looks up, she can’t see. Distantly, she feels a flush of success._

_Step one—become a prisoner of war._

_Done._

She’s not the first sabo they bring in, but she’s the first one 214 can’t get out of her head.

It’s the look mainly. That last glance, just as the prisoner passed by, with a gaze cut off by a flimsy cloth that still managed to look 214 directly in the eyes. As if she had known her somehow. From somewhere.

But of course, 214 has never seen her before in her life.

They took her to the blocks, she knows, and it’s not a place she normally goes. The blocks are no more than a few spare rooms, minuscule in size and deep underground, to which the few sabos they manage to pick up on patrols are sent and questioned. 214 isn’t of the rank to question them, but she pulls guard duty once every few weeks down there. If there’s anybody down there.

There usually isn’t. Usually, they’re shipped out with the next supply drop, to bigger, fancier jails, where those with even higher ranks will question them about things 214 isn’t cleared to know. 

Two days after the sabo comes in, 214 gets assigned to the blocks.

Actually, she doesn’t get assigned. She pulls somebody else’s shift in the kitchen for the easiest guard post, then uses it to trade her way into the blocks. It’s a little elaborate and, she thinks, just a tad ridiculous, but it’s not like there’s much else to do on the little base that they call, for lack of a better word, home.

It occurs to her that of all the things she’d expected life on the line to be, she hadn’t expected it to be boring. But now that she’s here, it’s hard to imagine anything else that would fit. Boredom seems as obvious as the peril which lies heavy over their necks, brushing the tops of their helmets like low-hanging clouds. It’s a laboriously dangerous kind of boredom too, the type which comes from having much to do every day, and enjoying none of it. There’s little sleep, and worse food, and 214 pinballs from guard duty to patrol to sleep to kitchen duty to patrol again, and none of it is exciting, but the fear still sits at the base of her neck, a constant whisper of ‘what if’ in her ear, and a white-knuckled grip on a rifle she never uses.

There are little things, fantasies and games that 214 invents to pass the time. One of them is that the prisoner in the blocks, with the strange blue coat and the odd, penetrating gaze, is somebody worth concerning herself with. 

The blocks—that is, the small set of cells assigned to temporarily hold prisoners—are locked with metal mesh doors, the kind one can stick their fingers through if they really try. There’s a slot in the door for passing in food, and a thin mattress, as stained and ragged as any of the ones the soldiers sleep upon, and a plastic bucket in the corner which serves as a restroom. 

A guard is posted outside the door, 24/7.

The prisoner is sitting on the mattress when 214 tramps down the stairs. She doesn’t look up, but keeps her gaze fixed on the dirty ground before her. 214 ducks the low concrete ceiling as she arrives, then straightens up to hail the guard she’s relieving, but really out of the corner of her eye she’s already searching for that prisoner, half-hoping for some flicker of—she doesn’t even know what.

She’s not disappointed. The prisoner’s head jerks up at the sound of her voice, and her eyes fly to 214 with such unexpected intensity that 214 nearly takes a step back.

“You good, 214?” the guard asks, and she tears her gaze away from the prisoner, nods.

“Mmhmm.” But her eyes are already creeping back to the prisoner, dragged by a curiosity she knows that, technically, she’s not supposed to indulge in. 

But doesn’t it enter every soldier’s head, just once, to ask an Algori sabo just what they can possibly be thinking?

“Okay, sure. Have a good shift.” The guard agrees too quick, eager probably to finish his own shift and grab a bit of sunlight while it’s still up there. He turns and clumps up the stairs, leaving 214 alone with the prisoner.

Which is exactly what she wanted. Only now, inexplicably, she can’t help but feel a slight hint of trepidation.

The prisoner’s eyes are incredibly piercing. And she’s staring at 214 with something close to longing, her eyes wide and her lips parted as if she wants to say something but isn’t sure what. She looks straight at 214 only for a moment, before her gaze flickers over her entire form, from her boots to her helmet, lingering on her rifle.

It’s not a comfortable sort of scrutiny.

214 isn’t sure what to say. Technically, she’s not supposed to say anything. She almost wants to, though; to ask questions maybe, get a sense of where the prisoner comes from, how she ended up here, but she’s not quite brave enough. So after a moment of hesitation, she half-turns, hefting her rifle to her chest, and plants herself in exactly the way she should be standing, on the off chance a superior officer comes down to look her over.

“Yasmin Khan.”

The sheer familiarity of the voice bowls 214 right over. She’s turning before she even thinks to do so.

The prisoner is still staring at her. Her eyes are large and incredibly sad. 

And tentatively hopeful.

“You’re not supposed to talk,” 214 says in a voice harsh with surprise, and turns back to the front, cursing herself because that didn’t sound commanding _at all._ Like a kid trying to reprimand a sibling—full of false authority.

“Yaz.” The voice is pleading now, and once again, that familiarity knocks 214 in the chest, forcing the air out of her lungs. She takes an unnecessary breath, and squares her shoulders. And doesn’t turn around.

“Yasmin Khan.” She hears the prisoner pull herself to her feet, hears her approaching footsteps, echoing in the small space. “Yaz, you don’t remember me, do you? It’s the Doctor. I think I’ve accidentally gotten you mixed up in something very wrong.”

Fear clogs 214’s throat, abrupt and filmy, ruining her ability to swallow. She tries anyway, feels it get stuck in her throat.

_She’s trying to get into your head,_ she thinks. _That’s what the sabos do—sabotage anyway they can, with whatever tools they have._

This has happened before, she’s sure of it. Sabos talking their way to freedom. Trying to convince a guard of something preposterous, like some prior relationship. Some connection.

214 doesn’t turn around. The familiarity sits uncomfortably in her stomach, demanding notice. She ignores the question. 

“Yaz, I know you’re ignoring me,” the prisoner says, and there’s a teasing lilt to her voice, but there’s desperation too. “Please, Yaz, I know you might not recognize me, but can you—can you just look around? We can talk. Can’t do much harm, that, can it?”

“Yes it can.” The words are out before 214 realizes she’s talking, and she curses herself for giving in at all. “I mean—I’m not supposed to talk to prisoners.”

It sounds weak, coming out like that, and she closes her eyes for a moment at her own stupidity. What’s worse than talking? More talking.

“What’s the harm in talking?” the prisoner asks, and 214 almost goes to answer, then bites her tongue. No more fraternizing. She can’t. She shouldn’t have in the first place. “Talking’s brilliant. Like if we talk right now, I bet I could help you.”

_There_ it is. 214’s hands tense on her rifle, and she sucks in a breath to keep from laughing out loud. The sabo’s tactics are far too obvious—did she really think 214 would buy it? _If we talk, I can help you._

She highly doubts it.

“Shut up,” she says, and revels in the pure, contemptuous authority of it. They’re the words she’s supposed to say, though actually she’s not supposed to be saying any words at all. But she figures it’s better late than never.

The prisoner, unsurprisingly, does not shut up.

“Listen, Yaz.” Her voice is soft and harshly ragged, like she’s trying to be fierce but is a little too tired to sell it. “I know this may be hard to believe, and I have nothing yet to convince you, but this isn’t you. You were taken by the Tzanhani empire—”

“Shut _up_ ,” 214 snaps, and turns her head halfway, catches the startle of the prisoner out of the corner of her eyes. “I _said,_ I’m not allowed to talk to prisoners.”

There must be a little more fire in her voice this time around, for the prisoner snaps her jaw shut and doesn’t open it again. The hours pass in uncomfortable silence, and the entire time, 214 regrets getting herself placed in the blocks. It’s not exciting as she expects; it’s only agonizingly awkward, and full of a ridiculous, unbearable tension. 214 stands stiffly the entire four hours, and wonders how stupid it was of her to think she wouldn’t get tricked by a sabo.

The moment her replacement comes, 214 rushes up the steps, and doesn’t look back.

_“Hang on, so this is basically apple picking?”_

_The Doctor has her hand in Yaz’s, her thumb absentmindedly brushing over her skin. There’s a rather goofy smile on her face, but at Ryan’s question it drops off into a frown._

_“Oi, these are the most exclusive apple orchards in the world! I payed a pretty penny to get you lot in here.”_

_“Doctor, we saw you flash the psychic paper,” Yaz reminds her. She’s smiling as she says it though, the kind of smile Ryan always teases her about later. A bit loopy, he calls it. And sometimes, slyly: so, better than Danny Biswas?_

_“Yeah, Doc, we know you don’t use money. Last time you tried to use an ATM you nearly got arrested.” Graham adds in._

_“Oh, they weren’t going to arrest me.” The Doctor nabs a basket from a nearby stack and passes it to Yaz, then leans over to grab another, as Yaz passes hers to Ryan. “Yaz talked them out of it, remember?”_

_“And I told you, I ain’t doing that again. Nearly got me sacked.” Yaz slips her hand out of the Doctor’s to heft her basket, then looks across the orchard, to the rows of darkly-leafed trees stretching into the distance. Above the branches, an orangish sun washes out a too-pale sky. It’s all pleasantly alien._

_The Doctor winces. “Ooh, right. Well see, that's why I use psychic paper. Much smoother. It's just a shame it didn't work on the ATM.”_

_Yaz giggles and the Doctor grins, which only makes her blush. Her heart is seizing in a way she's grown familiar with, and it's both agonizing and sort of wonderful. Wonderful because she knows what it means, and agonizing because she's no idea where it's going. And it doesn't help that the Doctor keeps giving her those glances when she thinks she's not looking, pursed-lip uncertainty and an occasional sparkle in her eye, like she's just on the verge of saying something she never actually does._

_And god, Yaz wishes she would just come out with it already. It's a tough place, that heady spot between knowing and asking, and she thinks sometimes she knows but she doesn't yet have the courage to ask. Not when the other party is so…ambiguous._

_“You alright, Yaz?”_

_Yaz startles from her reverie, her head shooting up, and she meets the Doctor's worried gaze with a quickly flippant smile._

_“Yeah, ‘course! Just taking it all in.” To accentuate, she cranes her neck back, looks up at the thick canopy of leaves, spots greenish-gold fruit hanging heavy from drooping branches. She frowns. “Might be a bit above my height level, though. Do they have ladders?”_

_“Ladders?” The Doctor scoffs. “Yaz, we don't need ladders! We just have to find the shorter trees.”_

_Her hand slips out of Yaz’s and she brushes past, towards a small, clearly younger tree heavy with fruit. Yaz follows of her own will, brushing her sweaty palm upon her jeans, and watches as the Doctor reaches up to pluck a golden fruit from a branch. As Yaz watches, she takes an enormous bite, then splits into a grin._

_“Oh, this is way better than apple bobbing!” She reaches up and snags another fruit, then hands it to Yaz. “You've got to try this.”_

_“Sure.” Yaz takes the fruit but doesn't bite it. She's watching the Doctor, who's got a line of juice running down her chin, and tries not to laugh. “Doctor, you've got—”_

_“Oh no, do I?” She swipes at her chin, somehow misses it completely, and this time Yaz really does laugh. She steps forward, and fumbles in her pocket for the handkerchief Ryan always teases her about carrying. “Here, let me—”_

_She brings it up and without thinking, goes to dab at the Doctor’s chin. She's halfway through before she realizes that she could have just handed it to her instead. But the Doctor is grinning still, a too-wide, stupid grin, and she tilts her chin back to help. They're standing awfully close together, Yaz realizes abruptly, and that strong fragrancy of those-not-quite apples is all around them and it would be too easy, Yaz thinks, too easy to just—_

214 wakes up with her heart pounding and her lungs caught in her throat.

It takes a moment for eyes to adjust to the darkness, but she doesn't need light to know where she is. The damp smell of underground clings to her nose, rough cement and tracked-in dirt, the kind they can never entirely sweep out no matter how hard they try.

She's in her own cot, on her own thin mattress, in the small, underground room she shares with three other people. They're all fast asleep, and as her eyes grow used to the dim light coming in from the hallway—the generator powered lightbulbs which stay on constantly—her heart starts to calm, choking breaths settling into gasps. Panic recedes, and embarrassment wells in its wake. She thinks back over her dream and goes hot with it, not only with the shame of unconscious betrayal—she'd wanted to kiss her—but with girlhood shyness at its content. There hadn't been anything particularly salacious about it, but it had been sweet and intimate and far removed from anything 214 could recall feeling in a long time. Or ever.

And it had been _familiar._ It had the ache of a memory rather than a dream, only it couldn't be, because the prisoner was a sabo and 214 was a Tzanhani soldier, and it wasn't like she had any memories to recall, anyway.

214 sits upright in her bed for long seconds, hears them tick past in the steady thump of her heart. An idea pops into her head, a ridiculous, foolish idea, the kind she knows immediately she won't do because it has suspicion fingerprinted all over it.

But it tugs at her, tauntingly.

214 sits for several minutes longer, debating. The idea sits insistent in her head. 

After another long minute, she carefully peels back her mattress from the cot, removes her rifle, which has laid beneath her head, a makeshift pillow, and stands to dress.

The guard stares at her, open-mouthed, as she clumps down the stairs to the blocks ten minutes later. She's fully kitted out, rifle in hand, and when her boots hit the cement floor she shifts her rifle to one hand and jerks a thumb over her shoulder.

“I'm relieving you.”

The guard keeps staring. “It's…not the end of my shift yet.”

214 cringes slightly because yeah, it isn't, and that's where the suspicion comes in. Nobody in their right mind would willingly switch somebody out mid shift unless absolutely necessary, and especially not in the middle of the night.

But she's been planning this stupid, useless lie for the past ten minutes.

“Yeah, I know.” She pulls on a scowl and shifts her weight to one hip, annoyed. “But you've been shifted to patrol tomorrow, so you have to go back to bed. Six hours of sleep, yeah? I'm meant to replace you.”

“Oh.” The guard’s mouth closes, and a slow, elated grin spreads across his face. 214 can't blame him. She wonders briefly what he'll think when he wakes up tomorrow and finds out he's not even assigned to patrol, and then decides it doesn't matter; he'll chalk it up to one of the many cracks of the army, through which fall lost equipment, assignment reshufflings, promotions and leave permissions. He won't argue, 214 is sure of it. 

“Great—have a good shift.” He's already moving past her, eager to return to his room, to his cot, to a few hours of sleep before another monotonous assignment wakes him up. She doesn't watch him go. She's staring, instead, at the prisoner.

She's asleep. Curled up on that thin mattress, huddling into her coat against the slight chill seeping in through the concrete walls. She looks small lying there, with her fingers tucked under her armpits and her dirty hair fallen across her face. Several of the strands have fallen into her open mouth.

214 stares.

Abruptly, the prisoner’s eyes open. 

214 takes a startled step back. The prisoner raises her head slightly, and blinks blearily, right at her.

“Yaz?” She croaks, and for some reason 214 shakes her head.

“I'm 214,” she half-whispers, then clears her throat and says it louder. “I'm soldier 214. I'm not…Yaz. I don't know who you're talking about.”

Maybe the prisoner is crazy, she thinks. Fixating on 214 as some fictional person, calling her by a made up name—or maybe she’s not actually a sabo, but some random civilian who somehow found a break in the fence. It's not the first time it's happened. 

She's considering this when the prisoner moves again, heaving herself clumsily to her feet and moving to the mesh-metal door separating them. She's limping, 214 notices, and when she steps closer to the door, the single lightbulb in the small space illuminates a bruise splashed across her cheek, half hidden under her hair. 

She's had a visitor, 214 realizes. Someone come to ask questions, possibly the LT. Or somebody even higher, come to inspect their far-flung base.

She swallows an inexplicable pit in her stomach and steps forward.

The prisoner is already at the door. She curls her fingers through the metal mesh, her eyes fixed upon 214, and leans forward until her nose is practically touching. 214 remains half a meter away, holding herself stiff and uneasy. She's not sure why she's talking to the prisoner. She knows it's wrong, knows it's dangerous, and yet—

It's _familiar._

And it's only now, standing in the blocks in the middle of the night opposite a prisoner she shouldn't even be looking at, with a mind scooped as empty as an ice cream bowl, does 214 realize she aches for something familiar.

“What's your name?” She asks the prisoner, and something sparks in those somber hazel eyes. The hint of a grin—familiar, _familiar_ —tugging at her lips.

“I'm the Doctor.” 

It's not a name. Something about that irritates her.

“That's a job, not a name.”

The prisoner really does smile now, slow and sad. “Is a number much better?”

“I—” it's the pity in her tone that makes 214 defensive. “I don't have a name. _Your_ people took it.”

“The Algorians?” The prisoner’s nose scrunches. “Oh, that's not me, actually. I'm not on either side of this—er, war, I suppose you could call it. Though I haven’t seen much in the way of it.”

Irritation again flashes through 214, bright and quick. She scowls, shifts her weight, and hoists her weapon higher. The prisoner’s eyes track the movement.

“Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean there isn’t a war,” she retorts, and partway through wonders why she’s feeling so damn defensive. It’s not as if she wants to be here. It’s just that—

Well, there isn’t a choice, is there?

And besides, there’s a condescending lilt in the prisoner’s tone, a glimmer of sympathetic amusement. As if she’s scoffing at their war. As if, by virtue of sitting on the line six weeks now without a hint of conflict, they might as well be playing at toy soldiers. As if it’s not _big_ enough.

And it’s not fair, 214 thinks childishly, because it’s not as if the risk isn’t present. It sits in her stomach every time they leave for patrol, bouncing over dirt roads in armored vehicles that they know aren’t advanced enough to survive a direct hit. It nags at the back of her mind when she stands guard, manning a machine gun inside an old pillbox sunken into the side of the hill, wondering when something will finally happen. Wondering what she’ll do if it does. 

All those things run through her mind, a veritable pile of reasons, and she wants to list them all but she gets the feeling it won’t change the prisoner’s mind one bit. So she sets her jaw and squares her shoulders, and considers turning back around.

She’s still entirely not sure why she came down here.

The prisoner is watching 214 with that strange, sad look in her eyes. She doesn’t like it; it gives her the feeling she’s failed some test she hadn’t even known she’d been taking.

“Yaz—” she says, and the unfamiliar word hits 214 once more like a punch in the gut. Her scowl deepens.

“You keep callin’ me that. My name ain’t Yaz. I don’t have one, I _told_ you. You think if I had a name, I’d be down here?”

She gestures vaguely around the small space, with a hint of bitter self-deprecation. Resigned. Accepting. The prisoner cocks her head, wrinkles her brow in genial, knowing confusion.

“Who took your name, then?”

This pulls 214 up short. She gapes, because it’s so incredibly obvious.

“Uh—the Algorians. Obviously.” The prisoner stares at her, uncomprehending, and once more 214 prickles with annoyance. It’s as if she’s pretending not to know, when everybody this side of the galaxy knows what the Algorians do. How they sweep through worlds, destroying everything in their path. How they wipe the memories of their victims, leaving them homeless, peopleless, identity-less.

How can you fight an enemy when you don’t even have a memory of home to stand behind?

But the prisoner cocks her head with the barest hint of disbelief. “That seems like a lot of effort for conquest.”

“What?” 214 stares. Angry heat rises, unbidden, to her cheeks. “What are you trying to say? That I’m lying?”

‘Course she would, she thinks viciously. She has to be a sabo, twisting words and threading lies through silvertongued sentences. 

Only she hasn’t really done much convincing. Just asked a few questions.

“No,” the prisoner answers, her tone careful. Cautious, as if she’s afraid 214 might turn on her heel and storm off. As if she isn’t stuck guarding for the next two hours. “It just seems a little funny to me, when you know all that but you can’t even remember your own name.”

“Remember—” 214 starts, then stops, as the implication of the prisoner’s words sink through her. Her mind is spinning. “That has nothing to _do_ with that! My name was stolen, just like—”

_Everything else,_ a whisper aches at the back of her mind. Everything else, and she’s a ghost stuck here in a soldier’s uniform, with heavy boots and the weight of a rifle she’s long since grown used to. “Of course I know that. Everybody knows that. It’s common knowledge.”

“Really?” the prisoner’s smile widens, just enough for her teeth to glint in the dim light. There’s a bitter twist to her mouth, one 214 only notices because she’s watching very closely. “Where did you learn that? If you can’t remember anything.”

“I—” 214 pauses, thinks back. It’s a good question, because now that she’s thinking—where did she learn it? Her mind stretches back, and she scrabbles for distant memories. Her first day, filing into the Induction Center. Sitting on rows of plastic chairs, hundreds of youths like herself, blankly nervous, waiting for the presentation to start. Nothing in their heads, like cracked eggs, all the yolk spilled out. The lights dim, and a presenter begins to talk, his voice sharp and commanding. Charismatic.

_This is why you’re all here._

“Yaz?”

214 jerks, startles from her memory. “Huh?”

Then she remembers who she’s talking to and scowls, eying the prisoner with halfhearted suspicion, even as the rest of her mind is still reeling.

_This is why you’re all here._

“You do remember, don’t you?” the prisoner is watching her intently. “All that stuff you learned—who taught it to you? I’ll wager it wasn’t the Algorians.”

“Uh—” 214 opens her mouth to answer, to snap off a retort— _no, you’re wrong, it’s not like that_ —but she can’t. Because the prisoner is right in all the facts, even though the implications behind her words have to be wrong. So instead 214 narrows her eyes. “You’re trying to trick me, aren’t you? You’re trying to get me confused, to get me on your side—”

The prisoner is shaking her head. “Nothing of the sort. Like I said, I’m not on either side.”

“Yeah?” 214 steps forward, dangerously close to the mesh door. Her eyes glint with uncertain defiance. “So what are you doing here, anyway? If you aren’t a sabo.”

The prisoner’s smile, which has long since dropped off, twitches back to life. “Oh, me? I’m just looking for my sonic. Your friends took it when they arrested me.”

It’s not the answer 214 expects to hear. Then, she’s not really sure what she was expecting. “Wh—What’s a sonic?”

The prisoner—the Doctor, 214 suddenly remembers, that was her name—shrugs. “Oh, it’s loads of useful things. Specifically, it’s a metal tube-looking thing, about yay-big—” she removes her hands from the mesh to demonstrate— “with a flashy light on one end. Pretty important that I find it, actually.”

A half-forgotten dream nags at 214’s mind, of an old abandoned warehouse and a man with blue skin and teeth in his face, a crane stretching into a night sky. A crane. What’s a crane? She grasps for the dream, and it fades like morning mist.

“I’m not helping you find it.” The words slip out before she realizes that the prisoner—Doctor—hasn’t even asked. She flushes with embarrassed presumption. “I mean—don’t try to convince me. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”

“Yeah, but you are,” the Doctor points out. Her bitter smile is back in place. “Can’t say I haven’t enjoyed the company. Yasmin Khan. Yaz to your friends.”

_I’m calling you Yaz, cos we’re friends now_ —214 pushes the thought away. “I told you, I don’t have a name. Nobody does, that’s the rules. Until it’s over, until we win—”

_No names,_ they said. _No names, to remember what you’ve lost. To remember what they’ve taken from you._

“Awful convenient, that,” the Doctor says. “Suppose it’s easier than bothering with names.”

“Shut up,” 214 whispers. Her stomach is twisting at the Doctor—the _prisoner’s_ —unbridled arrogance, her casual assumption of familiarity, calling 214 by a name that fits like a glove but can’t be right because she doesn’t _know_ — “Shut _up._ You don’t know anything, you’re just a sabo twisting words, trying to make me doubt—”

“Seems to me there’s a part of you that wants to.” The Doctor raises her eyebrows, and 214 snaps her mouth shut out of sheer speechless rage. She doesn’t know what to say, and before she can, the Doctor plows forward. 

“C’mon, Yaz—” her voice turns pleading, her fingers wind once more through the metal mesh of the door. She leans in close. “Please, I can see you’re doubting this. All of it. You don’t know who you are, do you? They haven’t even bothered to give you an identity.” Her voice turns sour, bitter. “They’ve barely bothered to give you a war, have they? Just dropped you off in the middle of nowhere, plucking people across the galaxy to fill their army so they don’t have to—”

“Stop it,” 214 hisses, and steps forward, close enough that the barrel of her rifle clangs against the door. The Doctor jerks back, her eyes falling to the weapon, and her lips purse together. She swallows hard.

“Oh, Yaz,” she murmurs, and she’s still using that name, painfully familiar and yet, when 214 reaches for it to confirm, entirely absent. “They’ve really done a number on you, haven’t they?”

214 pauses. Her automatic response is to deny, to retort, _they haven’t done anything to me_ —but then, that’s not entirely true, because she is a soldier after all, and there isn’t one sane soldier in the army who would claim the army hasn’t _done something_ to them.

She thinks back to her training, a years worth of grueling exercises and daily humiliations, crawling and marching and sweating under a hot sun, cringing under the screams of a furious commander and roused in the middle of the night to pay for some minor infraction. The lack of personal freedom, even that to think, because there isn’t any damn _time,_ only the endless trudge of fatigue and misery, knowing the only thing that tomorrow bears is more of the same. Drudgery, all of it. Miserable.

But it’s not as if they’ve forced her into it, she thinks. No subliminal messaging or propaganda, not even cheesy posters or rousing motivational speeches. There simply hadn’t been a reason to question it.

Because what else would she do?

“They haven’t done a number on me,” she replies, because she’s pretty sure it’s not true, and besides, she has to say _something._ “I’m not being forced into anything, I know what I’m getting into, why I’m here.”

“But do you know what you’re fighting for?” the Doctor tilts her head again, a challenge. “You, personally, I mean. What are you fighting for, Yaz?”

214 doesn’t answer, not even to rebuke the prisoner for using that strange-familiar name. She just stares, mouth forming words she doesn’t say. It’s got the shape of a philosophical question, but it’s all personal, and she’s not sure how to answer such a thing when she doesn’t have so much as a memory to fall back on.

So she stares. And in the silence between them a whistle rises, far off and away above ground. It grows louder within long seconds, rising in pitch, and moments later a boom cracks the earth, sending the entire hill, the entire landscape, rumbling.

214 doesn’t jump. She doesn’t spin around. She just watches the prisoner, her heart pounding slowly against her ribcage. Another whistle grows, another boom slams into the earth. Distant realization sinks in, but funnily enough, she’s too preoccupied by the prisoner to give it worthy notice.

The prisoner doesn’t look at all surprised. She lifts her head slightly, looks past 214 to the stairs leading into the low tunnel, which in turn leads above ground. 

“Well,” she says. Bitter resignation. “There’s that war you lot have been waiting for.”

_“Up! Everybody up!”_

_Shouts bolt 214 into wakefulness, and she’s moving even as her stomach plunges with dread, quickly shoved away into action. The entire barracks is a flurry of panicked, middle of the night movement, recruits diving for rifles and uniform blouses and knee pads, shoving on boots as the cries of their commanders near._

_“Up! Get out! Get out!” the door slams open and 214 flinches, but doesn’t look up. She’s already strapping her vest on, tightening buckles and buttoning pockets, hastily clasping her helmet._

_“What is this?” the girl next to her whispers, and 214 just shakes her head, and swallows the urge to laugh, because it’s a silly question, this far into training. That’s not the point of it, what they’re doing. The point is that they’re being woken up in the middle of the night, for something painful and grueling._

_“Night march!” their commander is striding through the barracks, boots clomping against the cheap lino floor. “One minute, everybody out for inspection!”_

_Someone behind 214 gives a despairing groan, she almost smiles in bitter agreement. She dares not voice a groan herself, but her stomach is twisting with ugly anticipation, and she can’t help but briefly contemplate the lost opportunity of sleep. Sleep is rare in the army, she’s learned; uninterrupted sleep is even rarer._

_“Thirty seconds!”_

_She swallows the trepidation building in her throat and grabs her rifle from beneath the head of her mattress, tossing the strap over her shoulder. Then she turns on her heel, and runs._

_They line up in the dark, two rows shivering in the chill, straightening up as commanders swing up and down the lines, checking equipment, handing out reprimands. It’s not quite cold, but it’s not pleasant, and the occasional gust of wind that rustles through the two lines sets a marked difference between their current situation and their warm cots, minutes prior._

_On the commander’s order they turn, two rows shifting to two lines, and wait there, bouncing on the soles of their feet with anticipation. Not excitement, exactly, but the eager need to see it started, see it finished. Get it over with._

_“Move out!” the commander calls, and there’s a tentative sigh of relief, quickly given way to dismal acceptance. The lines shuffle, move forward, then slowly break into a trot, silent except for the clink and rustle of equipment, boots pressing too-deep into soft dirt with the added weight._

_It’s already miserable, 214 thinks, the straps of her vest digging into her shoulders and her equipment dragging her down, her rifle clutched uncomfortably to her chest. She’s already thinking about the end, and she’s no idea when that will be. It’s not as if the commanders keep them privy to the schedule._

_It’s the waiting that gets her. The going somewhere and not knowing where, or how long, or why. The shock of being forced awake, like cold water poured on her head. She’ll never get used to it, she thinks. Not in a million years._

The rockets continue. They come in fits and spurts, always unexpected, always awful. There’s naught to do but hole up underground, in the rooms that sometimes give over to darkness when a particularly close hit knocks their shaky old generator out of function. It’s a nasty, helpless sort of warfare, the kind they don’t really prepare them to fight, only to deal with; sitting tight and gritting their teeth as a barrage rains down, churning up the earth around them.

A direct hit, 214 often thinks, and they’ll be dead. Of course, there aren’t so many rockets that she constantly thinks about such a thing, but the thought rears its head occasionally, a certain fear that leaps up her throat as she huddles in the dark underground, waiting for the barrage to end. 

They’re never very long, but as the weeks go by, they get longer. They’re preparing, the LT tells them one day, crowding them all into the biggest underground room available. The rockets are meant to break you down, make you weak. Keep you scared. So when they really hit, you’ll just want it to be over.

It’s a pretty smart tactic, 214 thinks. She already wants it to be over. This isn’t exactly how she imagined war to be, but it fits anyway; in one sense, it’s simply a continuation of that hanging, anticipatory fear, only realer and closer this time, a constant pressure on the back of her neck. The only way to deal with it, she realizes early on, is like a night march; is to simply grit her teeth and wait it out. Don’t think about when it will end, or whether it will at all. Don’t think about whether the roof will cave in.

Just dig in, and wait.

Patrols go out less frequently, but guard duty continues in the same hum-drum pattern as always. She pulls pillbox after pillbox, manning machine guns she’s scared she might actually have to use at this point, and pretends she’s too busy, too scared, to think about the prisoner.

She thinks about her constantly.

It’s not as if she has much to think about otherwise, but it’s a little ridiculous the way the prisoner—the Doctor—sits constantly in her mind, demanding attention, demanding _thought._ Or maybe it’s the prisoner’s words that do it, for 214 certainly spends plenty of time turning them over in her head, pulling them apart, switching them around.

_What are you fighting for?_

It would be easier if she had an answer she knew to be wrong. But she doesn’t have any answer at all, and it troubles her more than she wants it to. She digs down deep into her own mind, pushing past memories of training, of the army, and tries to find some emotion to grasp onto, an explanation. A reason. Something.

She finds only blankness, and an oddly flat acceptance. She’s here because she’s here. She is Tzanhani, and the Algorians stole her homeworld and her memories, and now she is on this base because she has no other place to be.

She tries to dredge up some anger towards the Algorians, who surely deserve it, but surprises herself by finding none. She doesn’t hate them, she realizes. She can’t even really picture them in her head, only knows to recognize their uniforms, red insignia and a different shade of olive green, and rifles that are sleeker but bulkier. All things she’s studied in training. 

She tries to picture faces, and only pictures the prisoner, but that's wrong too.

She gets sent to the blocks thrice more in the following weeks, and makes an effort not to talk to the prisoner. She's a sabo, she reminds herself, even though she doesn't really believe it anymore, and she's using 214, sneaking her way into her mind to find a chink in her armor. A crack in her loyalty. 

And she still calls her by that damned name.

“You okay there, Yaz?” She asks once, when a particularly loud boom makes 214 jump. 214 tenses, then straightens her back and puffs up her chest to show that yes, in fact, she is. Another boom shakes the bunker, and she tries not to wince.

(They’re getting closer, she thinks wildly. Closer, and then it's only a matter of time before they—)

“I'm fine,” she returns shortly. Her back is to the cell, her eyes fixed on the concrete steps. She can feel the Doctor’s eyes upon her, scorching with sympathy. 

“You seem scared,” the Doctor murmurs, and 214 hears her shift behind her, fingers scraping against the metal of the door. She doesn't turn around. “It's alright to be scared, you know. Scary thing, war.”

“Thought you said this wasn't a war,” 214 snaps, and there's a low sigh behind her.

“Didn't mean that,” she mutters. Guilty. “Only because I've—well, nevermind. I was trying to make a point. It didn't work. But you're well in the thick of it now, anyway.”

It sounds like an admission, and 214 hesitates, wrinkling her nose. It rises in her, oddly enough, to disagree because—well, are they? The rockets start and stop and start again, and each time it's scary but it's not _war_ is it? It can't be war when it's so distant, when they simply sit and go about their lives and wait for someone to tell them how to respond. There's return fire, she knows, but it's all handled by units far behind the line, leaving her own platoon to sit helpless and useless, caught in a halfhearted crossfire between people she can't even see.

It's funny, she thinks, because they're meant to be the spearpoint, the tip of the sword, but instead the real action is happening far above, whistling through the air and cracking down around them in earth-shuddering booms.

“I don't think we are,” she realizes, the words out of her mouth before she can even contemplate them. She turns, hefting her rifle closer to her chest, and isn’t surprised to see the Doctor watching her, expression unreadable. “This doesn't even concern us, does it? They just left us out here to hold the line.”

She knows it's true the moment it leaves her tongue, and then she wants to laugh at herself because she _knew_ it was true. Hadn't she? When had she ever felt an individual in this godforsaken place, ever felt inexpendible? Not here, not on this base. Certainly not in training. 

She's given everything to a system, and she doesn't even know why. They only thing they've given her back is a reason, and it rings false in her ears.

_What are you fighting for?_

The Doctor clearly doesn't catch the thoughts swirling through 214’s brain, for when she starts to speak it's more of the same.

“That's every war, Yaz,” she answers carefully. “Every army. You're just cogs, I hate to break it to you. They give you the bare minimum and they take whatever they need. That's war, Yaz, that's—that's all it is. Expendable children.”

She spits it out in a voice weary with grief, hands tightening against the metal mesh. 214 stands there, and doesn’t answer, just listens to the crash of rocket fire in the distance. Fear twists her stomach and she thinks, _what for?_

There has to be a reason, though. Something.

“But we can’t—” she says, then stops and considers it further. “We can't just not fight. _They_ won't stop fighting.”

She jerks the muzzle of her rifle vaguely upwards, indicating. “And it's not—that's dumb, anyway. Everybody fights for something. Everybody’s got a thing they care about.”

_What's mine?_ she thinks.

The Doctor nods eagerly. “Yes, Yaz! Of course they do, you're right as usual—”

“As usu—”

She jabs a finger at 214. “But that's the question, isn't it? If everybody fights, then what are _you_ fighting for? Not for the army, not for the Tzanhani empire. What are _you_ fighting for? And how?”

“I—uh—” 214 stutters, and stares, and doesn't know what to say. Rockets are still shattering the relative silence. The Doctor’s words sit in front of her, too big to contemplate and yet ringing with truth, though she's not sure it's hers. She doesn't know what hers is, anymore.

“You keep calling me Yaz,” she whispers. Distantly she notes that it's closing in to the end of her shift, any minute the next guard will come to switch her out— “is that my name? Yaz?”

The Doctor tilts her head, studying her. “What do you think?”

“I don't know.” Her heart is hammering with almost-revelation. “I think I want to decide.”

Something flashes across the Doctor’s face, but in a moment it’s gone, and her expression is kind. Encouraging. “Of course. That's your right, after all.”

Abrupt footsteps pound the steps, and 214 glances behind her, then starts to turn. It's her replacement, it has to be. A breath huffs from behind her, longing disappointment. Almost frustration.

“Yaz?” It's tentative enough that she glances back, just for a second, before the owner of those footsteps appear. “My sonic is in your lieutenant’s room. He told me last time he was down here. Kept it for safekeeping.”

“Oh. Okay.” 214 doesn't know how to respond to this. A moment later, boots appear on the final steps, and she doesn't have to. She turns back to the front, gives her replacement a weary grin.

“Good shift?” He asks as he sidles up to the cell, tossing the Doctor a not-so-friendly glance.

“Uh, yeah.” 214 nods, hopes it looks convincing. “Well, you know. Boring.”

“As usual,” he grunts, and sets up beside her, splaying his feet and hoisting his gun, just the way they're meant to. She looks at him for a moment, feels the Doctor’s eyes upon her, and doesn't meet them. Instead she turns, and makes her way up the steps.

_“Doctor, does it bother you that I'm in the police?”_

_The question startles the Doctor. She looks up from her magazine—TIME, May edition 2072—and into Yaz’s questioning gaze. Then she lays the magazine down._

_“Why would you think that?” She asks in a careful tone. Too careful—Yaz catches it immediately. She slides into the chair across from her, and wrinkles her nose at the plates left over from breakfast, then pushes them to the side. Ryan always claims the TARDIS does the dishes if they wait long enough, but Yaz isn't so sure._

_“You don't like the police.” She states it as a fact, and watches the Doctor cringe with barely noticeable guilt. Caught. “But you never say anything about it, not to me. Why not?”_

_“Um—” the Doctor props her elbows upon the table and taps her chin thoughtfully. Choosing words, Yaz can tell. “Well for one thing, Yaz, you're my friend. And I know policing is your dream, even if I don't like it. I don't think it's entirely my place to argue about something you've already chosen.”_

_It's a good point. Still, Yaz presses onwards._

_“Yeah, but—” she says. “Still, I see the way you look at them. And the military, when we wind up with them. It's deeper than that, ain't it? You really, really don't like them.”_

_And what does that mean for me? is the unspoken, unanswered question. The Doctor picks up on it, and shifts uncomfortably in her chair._

_“Listen, Yaz.” she sighs. “I have plenty of issues with the police. It's a deeply flawed system, and the military—well, best I don't get started. But I can't blame somebody for trying to do good. And that's what you wanted to do, didn't you?”_

_“Well, yeah,” Yaz admits, and sits back in her chair, considering. “Okay, I get it, but it's not like everybody tries to do good either. I know plenty of cops who are just—”_

_She cuts off, shakes her head. The Doctor eyes her for a moment, and neither of them speak. Then Yaz sighs, and continues._

_“I dunno. I've just been thinking about it. Because I see so much bad stuff going on in the police force, and it's not as if I can change it. It's just so—so flawed, like you said. Makes me wonder if it's worth staying in.”_

_If she expects the Doctor to agree or disagree with this statement, she doesn't. The Doctor just shrugs, and leans back in her chair, arms across her chest. Yaz looks at her, waiting for her to say something, but she doesn't. So she continues._

_“And I really, honestly thought the best way I could do good was to be in the police, yeah? That I could make it to the top, change it from the inside, but now—” she gestures around the TARDIS kitchen— “Now I have this, don’t I? And we do so much good here, so—I dunno. If the police are so awful, why bother? I can do everything I want with you.”_

_The Doctor watches her as she finishes, an unreadable expression in her eyes. She lets silence hang between them for a moment before she speaks._

_“You're right, Yaz. I reckon you can save a lot more lives on the TARDIS than you can as a Sheffield PC.”_

_Yaz grins tentatively, but the Doctor isn't done yet._

_“But you have the choice, don't you?” She asks softly. “All you humans—and other species, every species really—are drowning in flawed systems. Police, armies—” her mouth twists on the word— “Big business and mega corporations. Government. You're all working in one, whether you know it or not. And some of you have the choice to opt out. But not everybody does. So the question is, who stays in? Because if all the good cookies leave, it's only the bad ones left patrolling the streets.”_

_Yaz opens her mouth, then closes it again. Her brow crinkles in confusion. “Hang on. So you think I should stay a cop?”_

_The Doctor laughs, suddenly, and the tension of the conversation shatters like glass. She leans forward, and gives Yaz a rueful smile. “No, ‘course not. And not just because I like you around, Yasmin Khan. I just think—” she pauses, pursing her lips as if unsure how to phrase her thought. “I just think it’s more complicated than that. Personal, maybe. It's a question of figuring out who you are, and what's worth fighting for. Whether it's worth reforming a system, or getting rid of it entirely. And whether you're even capable of doing that by yourself. Because sometimes you gotta work with ‘em, even if it hurts.”_

_She stretches her arms wide, gestures to herself. “You see me do that often enough, don't you?”_

_“Yeah, but—” Yaz isn't entirely satisfied. She temples her fingers and stares, frowning, at the table in front of her. “What if I don’t want to? What if I choose not to take part? That's basically what I did anyway, being on the TARDIS and all.”_

_“Well that's a choice too, isn't it?” The Doctor says. “It's just—it's up to you, Yaz, to decide on the right one. Just do the best you can, with the things you have. That's what anybody can do, after all.”_

_“Maybe.” Yaz is still frowning. “It's not perfect.”_

_She hears the Doctor’s mock gasp and looks up to find her grinning, slowly shaking her head._

_“Yasmin Khan,” she says in phony disbelief. “Are you really asking me for a perfect solution?”_

214 know where the lieutenant’s office is because she passes it every day on the way to her own room. It's a small room, most likely as dirty and cramped as every other space in the bunker, only she doesn't know because the door is kept closed. She glances at it when she goes to her room after her shift in the blocks, and then she keeps glancing at it, every single time she goes by. And every time she does, she thinks about the sonic.

It's dumb. She doesn't even know what the thing looks like, beyond a brief description and a half remembered dream she can't be sure is real. It's not as if she would ever get the chance to search the room, anyway. It's not as if she has the guts.

But the thought settles in the back of her head, an idea she probably won't indulge in but can't help, on the longer guard shifts, to entertain herself with. The question of ‘what if?’

It's a lot nicer than those other questions she can't stop thinking of, anyway.

She doesn't see the Doctor for another week, because she doesn't get assigned to the blocks. The rockets have worsened, coming at least twice daily now, and the lieutenant gathers them together once to warn of a possible attack. Not a spritz of rockets falling around them, but a concentrated barrage, rockets and machine gun fire and possibly missiles, the kind which can bullseye their base in an instant. The lieutenant draws down patrols and restricts the level of surface access, shuttering them all below ground except for absolute necessities. For the first time since they've arrived to their little base, a bunker in a hill on the edge of nowhere, they have nothing to do. There's guard duty, of course, but between those shifts stretch indeterminable hours of bored, restless quiet, with nothing to do but hunker down and wait, shuffling through a single deck of cards everybody is tired of playing.

And there's the fear, of course, sick and ever-present. 214 thinks often of the ceiling caving in, nearly as much as she thinks of the prisoner in the blocks, alone except for a single guard. She wonders who will get her out, if the whole bunker collapses in on itself. Probably no one. 

She tries not to let that bother her.

They pass a week like that, and it's simultaneously the worst and most boring of her life. She sleeps when she's not guarding, catches up on a whole year’s worth, and reaches a point where she just wishes it would _happen_ already. Then, not much later, she reaches a point where she's convinced it will never happen, and they've just been wasting their time underground for nothing. 

So when the attack comes, of course, it takes her completely by surprise.

It’s nighttime, and she's manning a pillbox in the loosest sense of the word, which means she's set up against the wall, rifle cradled in her arms, and craning her neck over the machine gun sitting in the open window. It's a bit too wide for comfort, but she tries not to think of that. A useless thought process anyway, because should bullets come arcing through the window, she's not meant to duck behind the concrete. She's meant to return fire. 

It's a sobering thought. She shoves it away, and thinks instead about the Doctor. Her and her stupid, haunting questions, which follow 214 to meals and sleep and guard duty, sit at the back of her mind as she deals out cards for the millionth time, sitting on the floor in their dimly lit room.

_What are you fighting for?_

She doesn't know. She turns it over her head and dredges up the same answer— _I'm fighting for my homeworld_ —but there's no real meat behind it and after a while she’s forced to admit that it's not the right one. There is no answer, only an empty space where a thousand memories should be and when she racks her brains, the only thing even remotely familiar that pops up is—

Her.

The Doctor, with yellow hair and hazel eyes and a smile she's certain is like sunshine though she doesn't know how she knows. 214 thinks of her, and wants to go home. That's the impression she gets; engine oil and sparks and an enormous grin, a flash of a multi-colored scarf, and threaded through it all, steady as a heartbeat, is _home, home, home._

She wants that. She doesn’t know how the prisoner possesses that, doesn’t know how it could possibly relate to her, but she thinks of it constantly. She thinks of the prisoner too much too, and far too intently, and that's how she doesn't notice the first rocket of the barrage whistling through the air, until it hits.

The BOOM! cracks across the landscape and 214 stumbles back from the sheer force of it. She grips her rifle instinctively, hauls herself to her feet, and only has time to think _here we go again_ before another strikes, close enough to shatter her hearing. She staggers to the machine gun, grips it because _that's what she's supposed to do, right?_ and stares blankly out across the dark landscape. Nothing is visible, not even the fence and the trees a few hundred meters away. Nothing is visible, but a faint whistling fills the air, quickly joined by another, and another, more at once than she’s ever heard before, and that’s when 214 realizes.

This is it.

She barely has time to feel fear surge through her chest before something smashes into the hill right below her, sending her stumbling again, and when she gets back to her feet it's not just rocket fire anymore, but machine gun fire too, chittering away in the darkness. It’s distant but close too, and when she looks up, she only catches a glimpse of thin light arcing towards the bunker before bullets slam into the concrete below her. She panics and ducks down, only to remember that she's not supposed to do that, she's supposed to be firing _back._

She doesn't want to. It's fear yes, but it's a strange apathy, a pointlessness to it all which she swallows because _she's a soldier, isn't she?_ and pulls herself to her feet, towards the machine gun. Her rifle, hanging off her shoulder strap, bangs against her shins and she swallows a laugh because it's stupid, really, that she's got two guns she's not going to use because they're all going to die from rocket fire anyway.

Another rocket—or maybe it's simple artillery fire at this point, she can't tell—smashes into the hillside and she flinches, grips the handles of the machine gun and swings it around so as to aim directly across the fence. That's where the fire is coming from, she can see it, and since the machine gun is already loaded (it's always loaded, just for situations such as these), all she has to do is nudge the safety and press down on the trigger. All she has to do is start shooting.

She doesn't do it. She stares, and realizes distantly she's shaking badly, from fear or adrenaline she can’t tell. The urge to cry clogs up her throat, not from any terror of imminent death—though that is undeniably present—but from, stupidly, simple homesickness. It sinks through her limbs and fills her eyes with tears and it's ridiculous, _ridiculous,_ because she hasn't anything to miss. She's right where she should be, right where she trained to be, and she’s doing exactly what needs to be done only she's not, because she doesn't want to. 

_What are you fighting for?_

214 has no idea.

She shoves the machine gun away from herself and staggers back, into the rough concrete wall behind her. Rocket fire shatters the landscape, shakes the very hill she's upon, and she trembles, teeth chattering, breathing ragged. Then she turns, and takes off down the tunnel leading away from the pillbox, into the depths of the bunker. 

Her heart hammers loud in her ears and her rifle bangs against her vest, the muzzle hitting her shins as she pounds through the tunnel, passing people running in the opposite direction. There are shouts and commands and the occasional cry of fear when a rocket slams into the hill, but 214 just runs on through the chaos, only one destination in her mind.

She pulls up short in front of it, halfway between her room and the blocks, and shoves the door open without bothering to see if it's locked. It's not; it swings open easily, only a slight creak of rust, and she trips inside, then straightens up and looks wildly around the office of the lieutenant.

She spots it immediately; it’s sitting on his desk, in a cup filled with various writing utensils, looking completely out of the ordinary. She almost wants to laugh, but doesn't have the time, so she just lunges forward and snatches the metal-tube thing right out of the cup. It's curved on one end and has a strange glowing rock embedded into the other, but she doesn't have to examine either end to know it's the one.

She's seen it before, though she doesn't know where.

She bursts into the hallway, nearly gets flattened by three soldiers racing past, and takes off running the opposite way, sonic in hand and only a vaguely formed plan in her mind. 

Step one: give the Doctor the sonic.

Step two: she has no idea.

The blocks aren't far; she reaches them in a matter of minutes, clattering down the steps with an impatience that borders on desperation. Rockets are slamming imperiously into their hill now, sending waterfalls of dust from the ceiling, and every time, 214 can only glance up and sickly wonder how long it'll take before the ceiling caves in.

The first thing she notices is that the prisoner is alone; her guard has clearly gone off to help with the fight. The next thing she notices is that she's sitting on her mattress with a dismal sort of calm, staring up at the ceiling as if she's actually waiting for it to give out. However, the moment 214’s boots touch the floor, her head jerks up, her eyes widen, and then she scrambles to her feet.

“Yaz,” she breathes, and crosses to the door, her fingers threading desperately through the mesh.

“Here,” 214 gasps, and shoves the sonic at her. “I got it, I took it from his office—”

The Doctor stares in disbelief, then her face breaks into a wide grin. “Oh Yaz, you're brilliant!”

She snatches it through the food slot, brings it to her face, and begins thumbing something in that 214 can't see. 

“What are you doing?” 214 asks, wincing as another impact shakes the hill. The Doctor doesn't look up as she answers.

“Entering coordinates to pick us up,” she says. “Bringing you home, Yaz.”

_Home._ Her heart aches at the sound of it. Then she takes a step back. 

“Home?” She questions, and there must be something about her tone that sends the Doctor’s head jolting up. Her fingers pause on the sonic.

Her gaze is too soft.

“Yeah, Yaz,” she says. “I know I can't prove it, but—I think you know, don't you? We knew each other, from before all this.”

It all sounds too good to be true. It has to be. 214 shakes her head.

“I don't—” she whispers. “I don't know. I don't even know who I am. How am I supposed to trust you?”

The Doctor pauses. Then the hand holding the sonic lowers. She leans forward against the mesh. Even with the metal barrier, they're a spare foot apart.

“I don't think you need to trust me,” she says. Her eyes are soft with understanding. “That's not why you came down here, is it? You made a choice.”

“I—” 214 swallows dryly. “I dunno. I just don't know why we're fighting. I don't even know who I am. How can I figure out why I'm supposed to fight if I don't even know that?”

The Doctor doesn't answer. 214 doesn't look at her. She stares past, eyes blank on the crummy mattress on the floor. Another boom rattles the bunker, and dust rains down from the ceiling. Distantly, she can hear the chatter of machine gun fire, the shouts of her commanders. The whole base is in upheaval, she thinks. The moment they've been half dreading, half anticipating, arrived. 

And she doesn't care.

_What are you fighting for?_

_Nothing,_ a petulant voice whispers at the back of her head. And then: _not this._ Something else, something more. Something that fits in with who she is, not that she knows that person yet.

She looks up, into the eyes of the Doctor, who has been watching her this whole time, waiting.

“My name,” she says through dry, cracked lips. “Is it really Yaz? Yasmin?”

The Doctor studies her, then smiles sadly. “Only if you want it to be.”

“Oh.” She considers this. “I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring it out.”

“Of course.” The Doctor cocks her head, something on the tip of her tongue, then swallows it and reaches into her pocket instead. “Is that a yes, then? To leave?”

She's already pulling out the sonic, 214—or is it Yaz, now?—sees. She stares at it, and only vaguely notes that she's still holding her own useless rifle. Heavy fear is fading into tentative hope, but it still echoes with every thump of her heart. Above them, the barrage continues. Endless.

She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t know what she wants, but it’s not this. And if she has a choice— 

“Where are we going?”

Her heart thumps. Her breath catches. She knows what answer she wants to hear, and when the Doctor smiles, and pulls the sonic fully out of her pocket, she leans forward on the soles of her feet to catch the words. 

“Home, Yaz. We're going home.”

214 hesitates. Then, she nods.

The Doctor thumbs the button.


	2. Hiraeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @Joli: Don't say I never wrote nothing for ya, love
> 
> ALSO! Sara (hellynz) suggested ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ as a fitting song for this fic, and yeah, it is. Listen for max feels while reading

There are two men on the ship—the TARDIS, the Doctor had called it—that 214 doesn’t know. They stare at her, mouths gaping, when 214 climbs inside, and she stares back. Confused, and slightly apprehensive.

_ “Do you really think she’s an alien?” he asks, and she pauses, considering the question. _

_ “I think I do, yeah.” _

“Yaz—?” The younger, dark-skinned man calls apprehensively, and she doesn’t answer because she’s not sure what to say. Maybe? She doesn’t think she’s a number anymore, doesn’t want to  _ be _ a number anymore, but—Yaz? She feels like she’s stealing it from someone else. 

“Who are you?” She asks instead, and watches hurt flare in his eyes. It occurs to her that perhaps she knew him, and she winces guiltily.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, though she’s not sure for what. Abrupt silence descends, in no part because the Doctor has closed the door behind them, and 214 turns just in time to watch her brush past, hover an uncertain two feet away. As if she wants to get closer, but isn’t sure of the protocol.

“No need to be sorry,” she tells 214 with false cheer, and gestures to the two men. “Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”

214 watches as they look to each other, then to her. The older man speaks first.

“I’m Graham.” He accompanies it with a grandfatherly grin, so kind she can’t help but give a small smile in return. “And this is Ryan, my grandson.”

“Oi, I can introduce myself, thanks,” the younger—Ryan—scowls, then swallows it to give 214 a small, abashed wave. “Hey, Yaz. It’s me, Ryan. We went to primary together.”

“Primary?” 214 frowns.  _ Primary _ . Flashes of biscuits and apple juice, a yellow slide and a swing set flaking with blue paint.  _ Rosa Parks _ . They’d met once, hadn’t they? She’s not sure who that is.

“Yeah, primary.” Ryan grins, encouraging. “You remember, don’t you? Once I stole your toy police truck so you pushed me off the slide.”

“Uh—“ she hesitates, unsure how to tell him that she doesn’t. “I don’t—“

“It’s okay, Yaz,” a soft voice says beside her, and she looks up into caring hazel eyes. The Doctor reaches for her hand, and she shifts her rifle to one side to take it. They’re both grimy, covered with dust and sweat and, in the Doctor’s case, dried blood. 214 doesn’t care.

“Take your time. I want to look at your memory anyway, see if their isn’t something we can’t get back.”

She’s grinning as she says it, and 214’s heart beats fast with painful hope. “You really think—?”

The Doctor’s grin drops slightly. Her voice turns gentle.

“I’m not sure,”’ she says, and 214 can tell it’s the truth. She hates it anyway. “I need to see what they did to you exactly to be sure. There’s always a chance we might be able to reach something.”

“Oh. Okay.” 214 tries not to sound disappointed. It doesn’t quite work.

And the Doctor sees right through it. She purses her lips, studies her, then beckons to the hallway. “Shall we?”

The Doctor stops only to do something at the funny looking hexagon in the center of the room before she leads her down several long corridors, stopping finally at a white door painted over with a large red caduceus. 

“Here we go.” She pushes the door open, holds it for 214 to step inside, then gestures to a medical examination bed. “Why don’t you hop on up, and I’ll get my reader.”

214 doesn’t know what reader she’s talking about. She doesn’t question it, however. She’s not sure why, when everything here is strange-familiar and there are so many questions sitting at her mind, but—that’s the thing. They sit. She opens her mouth to ask one, feels no pressure of curiosity. She gets the oddest feeling of wrongness suddenly, as if she’s meant to be asking loads of things, tripping over herself with unknowns, only—

Who cares?

She recognizes a certain kind of philosophy when she sees it. A beaten in philosophy, over long months and brutal trainings and weeks sitting below ground, listening to a battle you’re not cleared to know about.

_ What’s the point in asking if you won’t get an answer? _

The Doctor turns around with a futuristic looking tube in her hand. It’s got a small flat box on one end and several buttons on the other and she presses one before holding it up to 214.

“Ready?”

214 looks at the device. Then to her.

“What are you going to do?” she asks. The Doctor smiles and gives the tube a little wave.

“Scan your brain. Take a look inside, see what kind of wipe they did on you. Only—“ her expression crinkles, turns serious. “I should warn you. If you have memories, it might bring them to the surface, and it shouldn’t—it shouldn’t  _ hurt _ , exactly, but it might be a bit overwhelming.”

Overwhelming. 214 is no stranger to overwhelming. She nods.

The Doctor breaks into a grin. “Brilliant!”

214 isn’t sure how the whole thing is supposed to work, but then the Doctor, with brisk efficiency, brings the flat end of the reader to the side of her head, just above her ear. It clinks against her helmet, and only then does she remember that she hasn’t bothered to take anything off. Not her helmet, not her flak jacket, or her boots. Even her rifle sits in her lap, and she’s got an absentminded hand wrapped around the barrel. 

Funny. 

“Alright, Yaz—“ the Doctor’s voice is soft, soothing, and when the reader hums, 214 feels rather than hears a faint vibration against her skull. She only registers it for a moment, before she nods forward and promptly blacks out.

_ “I want more. More of the universe. More time with you. You’re—you’re like the best person I’ve ever met.” _

_ A wedding, standing over a small stream, a flower in her hair— _

_ A crane and—that’s it, that’s a crane—and she’s climbing it, she has to get to—who does she have to get to? _

_ “In year 10, this awful girl used to bully me—“ _

_ “Yaz, honey, could you pick up bread on your way home?”  _

_ “Us versus the Ux—“ _

_ “So where do we go now?” _

_ “I dunno. All of time and space to see—“ _

They’re there, or almost, and she’s reaching for them, grasping desperately, fingers brushing against memories that dissolve like dew on a spring day, and she almost—almost—

They fade, and she jerks awake gasping.

“Wha—“ there’s something wet on her face, she notes dimly, and two hands grasping her shoulders, firm but not rough, and she looks around wildly only for a moment before her eyes land upon the Doctor.

“You woke me up!” There’s an awful fragility in her chest, like a spiderwebbed window, and she doesn’t want to touch it so she bulldozes over with anger. “Why did you—I was  _ remembering— _ “

“Yaz, Yaz—“ the Doctor’s voice is too soothing, too kind, and when she looks up into her face she sees her eyes are shining. Too bright.

Dread runs through her.

“I remembered,” she says weakly, and she can already see in the Doctor’s face that it isn’t so. “Those were mine, weren’t they? I saw them.”

The Doctor nods, but it almost looks like she’s shaking her head. “You have wisps. Traces. Whatever they left behind. Only—“

The Doctor really is shaking her head now, and she doesn’t want to see it. “It was a clean job, far as I can tell. Not a cover up. They just—scooped you out.”

She stares. Doesn’t want to comprehend. There’s something wet sliding down her cheek, and she wants to brush at it, but the Doctor has a firm grip on her arms and she’s afraid if she takes them away she’ll keel over. She still might.

“I—but I—“ and then the window in her chest cracks. Glass shattering everywhere. Her vision blurs until she’s completely blinded and she doesn’t want to cry—she’s cried enough in the army, god—but it’s too much to take, that of her entire not-life crashing down around her. All the small hope she’d harbored, which had actually secretly been big hope, gone and with it her self-composure.

“Oh Yaz, it’s—it’s okay.” It’s not, but those hands on her shoulders tug her forward, only slightly, and it’s enough. She collapses into the Doctor’s chest, barely a foot in front of her, into an embrace that’s familiar but  _ not familiar enough, _ and it’s that tiny difference that finally brings the tears forth.

The Doctor holds her tight as she cries, rubbing circles into her back that she can’t really feel through her flak jacket but is grateful for all the same. She sobs and sobs, hears the Doctor murmur reassurance after reassurance, and wonders, snot nosed and red-eyed, who on earth the Doctor is meant to be comforting.

————

The Doctor sits her down and explains everything. She explains who she is, and how they met, and where she’s from, and she listens and nods and waits for sparks of recognition that don’t come.

There are whispers though, and when they brush at her mind she grabs for them, falls right through. Nothing behind but emptiness, and a little over a year’s worth of memories she doesn’t want. 

When the Doctor finishes her explanation, expression set in a soberness that she can tell is trying to hide anguish, she leans forward and slides her clasped hands forward on the table.

“So, Yaz,” she says. And then— “Can I call you Yaz?”

She hesitates.  _ 214 _ , a voice whispers, stark familiarity, and she pushes it away because she doesn’t want that anymore. Doesn’t want to be a number, doesn’t want to be a cog. She’s still sitting in her uniform, in her kit, and every moment it grows more distant and uncomfortable. She’s grateful for it.

But she’s not Yaz anymore. She can’t be—she doesn’t even know that girl, never seen her before in her life. Yaz is—god, she doesn’t even know enough to say. The Doctor knows, maybe, but she’s also got an intensity in her eyes that begs her to take the name.

But she needs to be  _ someone _ .

“Can I—” she stops, swallows. Thinks of another name the Doctor mentioned, one that doesn’t ache so much. “Can I be Yasmin? Just until—”

_ Until you don’t expect me to be Yaz, anymore. _

She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t finish her sentence at all, but lets it dangle, while the Doctor stares, unreadable hurt in her eyes. Then the hurt is gone, and she nods.

“Of course. Yasmin.” She sounds the name out on her tongue, rolls it around like a sip of expensive wine. “Yasmin. I like that.”

“Thanks.” She can’t hide the relief in her tone. The Doctor, of course, hears it and smiles.

“So, Yasmin. As I was saying. What do you want to do now?”

“Do now?” Yasmin crinkles her nose. It’s an unexpected question, full of decision she’s never had to make before. Do with what? Her life? Her day? The next few weeks? “I dunno. I never thought about it before. What do you usually do?”

“Well…” the Doctor brings her clasped hands up, temples them under her chin as she thinks. “We usually just travel. Visit all sorts of places. We could do that too if you wanted. But I thought...well, I thought maybe you’d want to see your family.”

“Family?” Yasmin gasps out of sheer surprise. “I have a  _ family? _ ”

The Doctor, for a moment, simply stares, stunned by her reaction. Then her lips twitch into something that might be a smile, might be the start of a chuckle, but Yasmin isn’t paying close enough attention. Her mind is spinning around that one fact, dropped on her like a sudden load of bricks. A family A  _ family _ . With— 

“Do I have parents?” she asks, and realizes only after she says it that she’s leaning forward, hands gripping the edge of the table. 

The Doctor nods. “You do. A wonderful mother named Najia and a father named Hakim. And a sister named Sonya, and a grandmother who says you’re her favorite.”

Her smile twitches a little bigger with these words, as if there’s something funny about it—some sort of shared joke between them. Yasmin doesn’t bother digging into this. Her heart is thumping painfully against her ribs, and all she can think is  _ I have a family, I have parents, I have a sister, and— _

_ They don’t know me. _

Her heart stops, then slides right down to her stomach. She slumps back abruptly into her chair, hands falling into her lap. Her rifle still sits there, and she’s no idea what she’s meant to do with it. She can’t just toss it away—to do so rankles her with anxiety, the special kind fixed in by her commanders. An unattended rifle is one that can be used against you. It’s meant to be kept on her person at all times, constantly safeguarded. 

Only now she’s sitting here in a spaceship, with someone she thought she might have known once, and she’s still gripping it tightly, though there’s no need. What could she do with a rifle anyway?

She might as well say the same thing of herself. Yasmin swallows, and tightens rather than loosens her grip.

She doesn’t want to get lost. And a rifle in a family home seems entirely out of place.

The Doctor is watching her, head cocked inquisitively. Her eyes fall to Yasmin’s grip on the rifle, but she doesn’t comment on it. Instead she says, “Would you like to see them?”

Yasmin looks up into her eyes, and panic flares at the thought. She’s not sure why.

“No.” she shakes her head, maybe a bit too quickly, because concern sparks in the Doctor’s eyes. She forces herself to stop, to be calm.  _ Catch your breath. You’re fine. _

“No, I—” why not? She’s not sure. “I just can’t, they don’t know who I am and—”

She realizes a beat later that it’s backwards, that it should be the other way around, but then she realizes that she means it the first way. It’s all wrong, incredibly presumptuous to throw herself into the middle of Yaz’s family like she belongs there. Like she has a mother, a father, a sister. A grandmother, who thinks Yaz is her favorite.

She can’t take the place of a dead girl.

“No,” she says again, firm this time, because the Doctor is opening her mouth to speak. “I don’t want to. Not yet. Just because—because.”

The Doctor hangs on her sentence for a moment as if there’s more to follow, and once she realizes there isn’t, she jerks her head into a bob.

“Of course! No pressure at all. After all—” she flutters on hand about the room, a small half-grin upon her face. “Not as if we don’t have time.”

“Oh—right.” Yasmin nods. She still isn’t quite sure she buys the whole traveling through time thing, but she’d seen the blue box appear right before her very eyes, so it’s not as if she has much room to doubt. “What do we do now, then?”

She’s throwing the question back at the Doctor, sort of hoping that she’ll answer it. Yasmin has no idea what she could do, what she’s  _ meant _ to do, and she doesn’t know how to decide. What does she want? In training, it had been easy; some sleep, food that didn’t come out of tin cans, a moment of reprieve from the constant physical punishments. On the line, it had been all of the above, along with the constant wish of not dying. 

But nobody had asked her what she’d wanted, and now that she ostensibly has all of those, she doesn’t know where to go from there.  

 The Doctor leans back in her chair. Her eyes twinkle, but there’s sadness hiding behind it, and a muted understanding. She studies Yasmin for a moment, who finds herself shrinking, caught and bared open.

It’s not fair, she thinks venomously, that the Doctor knows so much more about her than she knows herself.

She knows  _ things— _

“I want to stay here,” she says abruptly, and watches the Doctor’s eyes widen in surprise and excitement, the latter of which she quickly shuffles away.

“Sure thing,” she agrees a little too quickly, and her eyes once more slide over Yasmin, at her helmet, her vest, sitting heavier and heavier with each passing moment, and the rifle she’s still clutching. “I can take you to your room, get you cleaned up—er, not that I would get you cleaned up, but there is a bathroom and—”

“Got it.” Yasmin cuts her off, reddening slightly, though only because the Doctor is too. It’s a familiar feeling, she can’t help but think, and she casts her mind back though she knows it’s a futile effort, searching for  _ something _ — 

All she comes up with is that one dream from the apple orchard, and it’s a mistake to think of it because now she’s blushing too. Deep, obvious. 

“Yeah, okay,” she says, and lurches to her feet, catching her rifle as it swings to the side. Then she hesitates. “Hang on—I have my own room?”

“Course!” The Doctor climbs to her feet as well, grinning in that gentle way Yasmin has come to recognize. Like she’s a starved puppy, being fed for the first time. As if the fact that she’s never even had her own room before is—cute. Funny.

She’s not sure if she likes it.

“I’ll show you,” the Doctor continues, and beckons towards the door. “Shouldn’t be far, if the TARDIS behaves—”

“Behaves—” Yasmin doesn’t have time to finish her question before the Doctor darts for the door, throws it open, and gestures to the hallway. She turns to Yasmin, waggles her eyebrows in a way that almost makes laughter bubble up her throat.

Almost. There’s too much weight sitting upon her chest to make it real. So instead she sucks it down and passes through, then waits for the Doctor to shut the door behind them.

They travel again through several confusing hallways before stopping in front of a purple door, unmarked except for a small sign, which reads “YAZ’ in cheery block letters. Yasmin stares at it, and is so busy staring that she doesn’t think to open the door until the Doctor moves forward and presses the handle down. 

“Here you go,” she says in a soft voice, and lets the door swing wide enough for both to step through. However, she waits until Yasmin steps inside before she does so herself, and leans over to switch on the lights.

Immediately, sourceless light illuminates a large space, a little messy around the corners and by the bed, with purple walls and a ceiling that isn’t a ceiling at all. It’s a canopy of space, star clusters and swirling nebulas sparking against a dark sea, and Yasmin stares. There’s a door too, which probably leads to a bathroom, and the bed is large and unmade and comfy-looking, and there’s even furniture. A dresser with a mirror. A squishy chair, with a book left open upon it.

It’s as if the owner simply up and left.

Yasmin stands there, and can’t help the uncomfortable feeling that she’s standing in somebody else’s bedroom.

“Are you sure this is mine?” she asks. She feels the Doctor’s gaze upon her, and imagines the puzzled look upon her face.

Of course it’s hers. There’s a sign upon the door.

“Yep,” she says, popping the ‘p’. “Yasmin Khan. Yours only. Exclusive rights, guaranteed.”

She’s trying to be funny, or at least cheery, and she must realize it the same time Yasmin does, for her voice trails off and she shifts, awkward. 

Yasmin doesn’t respond. She’s still looking at the bedroom, and wondering how hilariously awkward it would be if the owner did, in fact, return, only to remember that she won’t because that’s her. Supposedly.

She still can’t quite wrap her head around it.

The Doctor shifts again, then coughs beside her. “Okay. Erm, if you want to shower—?”

“Huh?” Yasmin’s gaze jerks to her, then she realizes the question and flushes. Right. She’s filthy. So is the Doctor, actually, which eases her embarrassment somewhat, but only somewhat. She’s not sure why. “Oh, right. Yeah, I should shower.”

“Me too.” The Doctor smiles, self-effacing. She’s still got dried blood on her coat, Yasmin notices, and stiff in her hair. Her stomach twists guiltily at the sight. 

She’d come to their dinky little base, taken those rockets and probably several beatings just to find Yaz, and instead she’s found what amounts to a soldier standing in the skin of another girl. A facsimile. She tries not to feel bad about it, but it wells up regardless.

“Uh, okay.” She’s not sure what else to say. The Doctor eyes her for a moment, mouth open, caught between words, then her shoulders sag slightly and she smiles.

“I’ll leave you to it. And probably to sleep, after. Can always use more sleep, yeah?”

Yasmin nods, a little grateful because it gives her the chance to be alone, and she needs that. There’s too much to consider, and all at once, too. It’s a bit overwhelming. 

When she doesn’t answer the Doctor nods and takes a step back, one away from turning on her heel, before clasping her hands together and saying, “Goodnight, Yasmin.”

“Uh, night. Goodnight, Doctor.” she watches the Doctor turn, brush through the door, and just as her fingers slide over the door knob, swallows and says:

“And Doctor?”

The Doctor’s hand pauses. She doesn’t look back. “Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

It’s for the room, or not—it’s for everything, really. The shoulder to cry on, the conversations, that way she looks at her, as if it’s all okay. No guilt, no blame. Just...understanding. It almost hurts.

The Doctor doesn’t turn around. She heaves a breath—Yasmin watches her shoulders move up and down—before saying, almost in a whisper, “Nothing of it.”

Then she’s gone, shutting the door with a swiftness that borders on hurry, and Yaz stares only a moment before turning back to her bed, her room. Hers, hers. 

It’s marvelously strange.

She strips off her gear and showers with an ingrained quickness, marveling at the fluffy towels and fragrant soaps Yaz was apparently fond of. When she’s done, she hunts up a set of pajamas and flops into the bed, pulling impossibly soft sheets up to her chin.

It’s all—luxurious, the whole of it. She can barely comprehend, let alone appreciate it. So she just lies there for several minutes, staring up at undulating swathes of space, then closes her eyes and tries to remember.

She knows it’s useless. The Doctor had said, and Yasmin knows it herself, when she reaches for memories, that they simply aren’t there. There’s nothing but traces, bits that float disconnectedly with no meaning behind them. No context.

But she has a family. And there are traces.

She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to recall, which is hard because she’s growing sleepy. Too much lost adrenaline, and now she just wants to give over to unconsciousness but she can’t, because if she reaches just a little farther— 

_ “Hope you don’t craaash!” _

_ “And to Yasmin, my favorite granddaughter—” _

_ “Mum, I told you not to say that!” _

_ “Sonya, Yaz brought friends home!” _

_ The smell of spices in the kitchen, and wincing because she knows they’re about to be ruined by her father’s terrible cooking—  _

_ Sitting around the table as her mother cuts a cake her Nani is complaining about, and then— _

_ A room. _

_ She’s sitting in a room—no, she’s lying on a table in a room—  _

_ No, she’s strapped to an examination table and there are things clipped to her, suckers on her forehead with wires leading to who knows where and she longs to tear them off but she can’t move—  _

_ “What section is she at?” _

_ “Mid-teenage years. We’ve scooped most of her childhood.” _

_ “Most? Go back and do another pass. We should be getting 98%, anything less than 95% and we won’t get the obedience we need.” _

_ “Yes sir.” _

_ Footsteps approach. A hand pushes hair back from her forehead, adjusts the suckers strapped to her, then fumbles with something off to her right. She can’t see much—they’ve strapped her head down too, she’s staring at the ceiling. _

_ “Ready?”  _

_ It’s not to her. She answers anyway. _

_ “Don’t—” weak, pathetic. She can’t even remember what she’s protesting against. Where is she? “Please, stop—” _

_ A curse. “Damn it, she should be out of it! C’mon, finish with childhood and get those teenage years out, we need all the formative stuff gone. She’s slotted into the next cycle.” _

_ “Yes, uh, sorry sir.” A hand fumbles with something again, she can hear the slight scrape of nails against metal, and then the click of dials. “Right. Second pass.” _

_ “No, stop—” It’s too late. Pain arcs through her—no, not pain, it’s fear, the sensation of falling, like her feet are being ripped out from under her, patches of her mind scrubbed clean—  _

_ She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t—  _

_ “Second pass done.” The feeling fades away as fast as it came, leaving her floating, disoriented. She can’t remember what she was scared of. Where is she? She opens her eyes, stares at a ceiling. Beside her, a low whistle. _

_ “Sir, we got 99%. Should I move on to mid-teenage?” _

_ An impatient voice. “Yes, and hurry. She’s got some weird stuff right before the present here, I want to scoop that best we can. Could cause trouble later on.” _

_ “Yes sir.” _

_ The fumbling again—again? The click of dials. Without warning, she’s falling again, screaming at the rough, raw sensation of her entire mind being scraped over, plucked clean, as if—as if—  _

Yasmin bolts to a sitting position and gasps, sucking in breaths. Her heart is jackhammering and everything is too hot, too— 

She pushes her covers away and presses a hand against her forehead, as if she can feel the bristles of the brush pressing into her brain, harsh and careless. The memory—it has to be a memory, hasn’t it?—sits at the forefront of her mind, painfully clear, painfully  _ there _ . 

She remembers that. They had her in a room for ages, and when they turned the dial, she would— 

She winces, shuddering away from its touch, and is out of bed and on her feet before she even realizes she’s moving. She steps automatically towards the door, no destination in mind, only a thumping heart and a thick sense of fear though she doesn’t know why. That’s over, isn’t it? It happened and it’s done now, and she shouldn’t be scared because it’s the aftermath people are scared of and she’s lived  _ that _ , only— 

The sensation of the bristles pressing into her brain. Scouring every memory, not painful, but horrifyingly free-falling— 

A violent shiver forces its way up her spine, and Yasmin yanks open the door and falls out into the hallway. She’s no idea where to go, but she follows blindly, down the left, then turns right, then left again, and somewhere in the middle it occurs to her that she’s being led, only she doesn’t know where until a wide, abrupt entrance spits her out into the main room.

No, not main room—console room, that was what they called it, and the moment she enters she sees that she’s not alone. The Doctor is there, standing over the—console, that’s what it’s called—with an empty look in her eye. She’s staring at a monitor, but at the sound of Yasmin’s footsteps echoing on the floor, she turns.

“Yaz—Yasmin?” She catches herself, but Yasmin can’t help the sharp sting of disappointment anyway. Not Yaz, Yasmin. Not even that, really, not—yet.

“Hi,” she says, for lack of better words to sum up her reasons for—well, for being here. She should be sleeping, shouldn’t she? She wonders briefly how many hours have passed.

“You okay there?” The Doctor’s gentle smile is back in place, worry glinting in her eyes, filling the emptiness that had been there moments before. She steps forward, then stops, hands hanging nervously at her sides. She shoves them into her pockets. “Uh—was the room okay? Something I can change maybe, talk to the TARDIS—”

“I had a dream.” It slips out before she can take a second to properly figure what she wants to say, and how much. She winces internally; so much for holding back. She thought she’d been oscillating a bit between trusting the Doctor and holding herself wary, only now it seems that every time she spills it all.

“A dream?” the Doctor’s face crinkles and she moves forward. “A dream about—”

_ A dial. And a voice. Strapped to a table and a brush jammed to her brain, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing—  _

“Yasmin?” the Doctor’s voice floats to her and she realizes only too late that she’s staring, eyes wide on the floor in front of her. She jerks up, and looks at the Doctor, who’s caught between a tentative step forward. 

“Sorry,” she whispers, then shakes her head. “I—uh. I remembered something. About when they took me. Or after. I dunno. I just dreamed that—“

_ Scrubbing, scouring— _

“They scooped me.” Her voice catches and she stops, draws in a shaky breath. Her gaze has slid to the floor again. “I was in a room, and they—turned a dial or something, I dunno, and I remember—“

_ Nothing _ . That’s the cruelty of it. She remembers the forgetting, but not the forgotten. What memories did they take? Everything, there’s the short answer. The long—she doesn’t even know.

“Oh, Yaz—“ the Doctor strides towards her, and in moments she’s got her arms around Yasmin, or almost, because the moment she reaches her Yasmin takes a step back. Instinctive, but she regrets it immediately because the Doctor stops short, hurt flashing in her eyes.

She hadn’t meant—

“Sorry,” she mutters, and pulls her own arms across her chest, suddenly cold. “It’s not—“

_ Not you. Not you, but it’s the way you call me Yaz, and the way you look at me like I’m Yaz, and I can’t be her, I don’t know how— _

“Nothing to apologize for,” the Doctor says, and works her mouth into a crooked grin. A little forced, Yasmin notices, and it makes her feel even worse. She’s not sure what she came here to find.

“—but is there any way I can help?”

“Huh?” Yasmin looks up at her, confused. “Help what?”

The Doctor gestures vaguely. “This. You. Anything. I just—I want to help you, Yasmin. We’re friends, even if you don’t remember.”

_ I’m calling you Yaz, cos we’re friends now. _

Yasmin winces, and the next words slip out harsher than she intends. “You were friends with Yaz, not me. I’m not her.”

She expects the Doctor to disagree, to plunge into ugly and obvious denial, but she doesn’t. She tilts her head and studies Yasmin, sober.

“Maybe you aren’t,” she says, and it’s stupid but it hurts more than it should. “But her life is still yours, Yasmin. There’s no body here. Just you. And you deserve what she had as much as anyone, I reckon.”

It’s not what she expected to hear. And yet somehow, she thinks, it’s the very thing that she needs. She stares, and feels the gentle tap of a pick cracking open the fissure in her chest. Cold relief spilling in, the shock of jumping in a pool on a summer day. And those damned tears, welling up again.

She swallows them and looks up, into the Doctor’s hazel eyes. Impossibly kind. 

“I—“ there’s a lump in her throat she’s trying to speak around. “How can I know though, if I don’t? If I don’t remember?”

The Doctor smiles. 

“Yasmin Khan,” she says, and her grin has the slow light up of an idea. “Maybe I can show you.”

————

It still has the feel of nighttime when they traipse into the kitchen, still wearing pajamas, the Doctor clutching a cardboard box under her arm.

“Don’t usually keep paper photos, but Graham insisted we get one of those cameras—oh, you know the ones?” 

Yasmin shakes her head.

“Well, nevermind.” The Doctor sets the box on the table and slides into a seat beside it, then gestures to the one opposite. Yasmin thumps down and watches as she opens the flaps, removing envelopes stuffed full. She slaps one on the table, and lets out a low whistle.

“He’s taken quite a lot, hasn’t he? I told him I have an unlimited digital library but—well, maybe this way is better anyway.”

She opens a flap, shakes out a veritable sheath of photos— _ polaroids _ , the name floats in Yasmin’s head—and spreads them across the table as if she’s dealing cards.

“Here.” There’s dozens of them, and she’s shuffling through, rearranging, flipping the few that are upside down. “These are the most recent, I think. From the past few months.”

She pushes a handful towards Yasmin, who leans over, peering in close. And gasps.

It’s her. Her and the others, the two men and the Doctor, half candid and half posed, and nearly always smiling. They’re on a beach, waving at the camera, and they’re in an orchard, hefting baskets heavy with golden fruit, and they’re sitting at a cafe, her and the younger man—Ryan—making silly faces over pastries, while the Doctor hangs off her chair in laughter. They’re hiking on a winding trail, their backs to the camera, and they’re grinning at the top of a mountain, arms spread wide in front of a view that stretches for miles, and they’re sitting ‘round a campfire, marshmallows on sticks.

Only it’s  _ her _ in those photos, smiling or laughing or making silly faces at the camera, and Yasmin stares, and tries to reconcile herself with the girl looking out of them. She doesn’t quite manage it.

She’s seen her face often enough; most of the bathrooms in the army, minus the ones on the line, had mirrors. Only she’s never seen a photograph of herself before, and she’s never seen herself smiling in a photograph, and it’s all made stranger by the fact that she doesn’t remember a thing.

She stares for several seconds longer, then looks up to the Doctor.

“Tell me what they’re of,” she demands, and she can hear the greedy want in her tone but doesn’t care enough to temper it. “Where are they from? What were you—we doing?”

The Doctor smiles and leans over the table, craning her neck to look at the photos. She points at the one closest to herself, of Yasmin and the Doctor kneeling on a beach, next to a scruffy dog. “That one’s from the beach in New Brazil, I took you lot there a few months back. We found this old dog on the beach and he followed us around for ages, didn’t want to leave. Took quite a shine to you, too.”

“Really?” Yasmin is staring at the photo, trying to shove the puzzle piece into her brain. It’s frustrating; she has the answer right there, but nowhere to put it. Nothing but empty space.

“Yeah. You’re good with animals, you know.” The Doctor gives a funny little half-smile and her fingers move on, brushing over the next photo. “Ooh, I remember these. I promised to take you lot on a hike with the most amazing views at the end, only I forgot how long it actually was, and Graham and Ryan complained the whole way. You were the only one who actually liked it. Couldn’t get a bad word out of you the whole time, not that Ryan didn’t try.”

“Hiking?” Yasmin gazes at the photo, and a thousand unpleasant memories flood her mind. Two scraggly lines of recruits, sweating and panting and trotting to keep up with their unforgiving commanders, the cool chill of night time melting into the frictioned heat of layered clothing and equipment. Tripping over roots and rocks, cursing and biting back tears when an ankle twists, begging silently for a moment to stop, just to get a drink of water,  _ please _ when will it  _ end _ — 

“I hate hiking.” 

“Really?” The Doctor’s eyebrows raise in surprise. She moves her hand to another photo. “S’not for everyone, I suppose.”

Yasmin doesn’t answer. She’s staring at the next photo, the orchard with the golden fruits. An image flashes across her mind.

_ Standing so close together, uncomfortably close only neither of them seem to mind, and she thinks that if she just leaned in—just leaned in—  _

“Yasmin?”

“Huh?” Yasmin’s eyes jerk up to meet the Doctor’s, who’s watching her inquisitively. “Sorry. I was thinking.”

“Remembering something?” The Doctor’s brow is creased in sympathy, her gaze warm, knowing. “I was thinking that the photos might trigger traces, which could help—”

“No,” Yasmin says forcefully, and the Doctor snaps her mouth shut. She immediately feels bad. “I mean, no. Sorry. I don’t remember anything.”

_ She’s got juice running down her chin, only it’s got to be on purpose when she misses it with her sleeve—how do you miss your whole chin?—but she digs her handkerchief out anyway and steps close— _

“Nothing,” she repeats, only she’s blushing now, and the Doctor must see it too, for her eyes widen in surprise. 

“Tell me about the next ones,” Yasmin says desperately, before the Doctor can open her mouth, and stabs a finger toward a random photo. “Where’s that?”

The Doctor eyes her for a long moment, but then she continues on, moving her fingers over the next set of photographs.

“This was when we—”

They go through each one like that, and when they finish the Doctor shuffles them back into the envelope and brings out another one, and they go through that too. And another one, and another after that, and sometime between the fourth and the fifth the photos begin to blur together, and Yasmin starts to fall asleep.

She realizes she’s nodding only when she jerks herself back awake, but fails to notice it happening the second time, nor the third. It occurs to her sometime thereabouts that perhaps she should excuse herself to her room, but then her dream rushes back to her in stark clarity. She shudders, and shakes herself awake again. She doesn’t want to go back to sleep, she decides. She wants to sit here with the Doctor, and listen to the stories and try to piece together a life she must have had once, if the evidence is all splayed out in front of her.

She doesn’t notice she’s falling asleep the fifth time until her head nods right to the table, and her cheek presses against the cool film of the polaroids. Even then, she barely manages to half-rouse herself, mumbles something about not wanting to go yet, and then figures she must have dozed off for a second, for the next thing she wakes to is a gentle hand on her shoulder, and a familiar figure leaning over her.

“C’mon Yaz.” The Doctor’s voice is soft, but the hand on her shoulder is firm. “Let’s get to bed, yeah? It’s a short walk, promise.”

She gives Yasmin a mild shake, and Yasmin, like a petulant child, just shakes her head. Her eyes are closed, but she’s caught in that drowsy place between sleep and wakefulness, where it seems perfectly logical to simply ignore the problem until it goes away.

Above her, the Doctor gives an affectionate laugh. Her hand pats her shoulder.

“Alright, alright.” She bends down, her hands digging carefully under Yasmin’s slumped over form, drawing her gently upright, wrapping her arms around her. “Okay, I got you.”

She shouldn’t let her. The thought floats through Yasmin’s mind, half-formed and unthreatening, and she pushes it away because she doesn’t want to care about danger anymore. The Doctor is warm and familiar and she’s murmuring assurances into her ear, and it’s so stupid and so easy to let herself be picked up and carried, like a child being taken in from the car.

And a memory swims at the back of her mind, of being very young and falling asleep to moving lights and the soft click of a turn signal. She half-dreams, as they traipse through the hallways, of a warm, motherly voice, the click of buckles being undone, then a different pair of strong arms and a throaty male laugh as she’s lifted up and into his arms. Somewhere deep in her mind it occurs to her that it’s her parents she’s thinking of, it’s their voices and their arms, but her brain is cottoned with sleep and she doesn’t have time to pursue the thought before her head nods and she’s out completely.

The Doctor notices she’s asleep by the time she pushes open the door to her room. She glances down and smiles, but it’s a haunted smile, hollowed with guilt. She crosses the room and deposits her carefully into her bed, drawing the sheets up to her chin, then backs out as quietly as she can, shutting the door behind her.

Then she turns, and makes a beeline for the console room.

—————

It was the thing she had been doing before Yaz—no, it was Yasmin now—had interrupted. Or rather, it was the thing she had been gearing herself up to do, and had not quite yet managed.

She reaches the console and parks herself exactly where she had been, right in front of the monitor she had been staring at. One swipe takes the screensaver off, and she stares at the contact information upon the screen, the name and the two numbers, just in case the first one doesn’t work.

_ Najia Khan _ , it reads, and below that, a mobile and a work number.

_ “You can best reach me on my mobile.” She presses the paper into the Doctor’s hand. “Please keep this on you, yeah?” _

_ The Doctor casts a panicked glance towards Yaz, to no avail; she isn’t even looking at her. “I, uh—we’re not going anywhere—“ _

_ “Absolute rubbish.” But she’s grinning warmly as she says it, and her eyes hold a knowing glint. “She didn’t tell me anything, but I’m not an idiot. You travel, don’t you? I don’t know where, or how, but she’s always wanted to see the world. Or more, I suppose.” _

_ “I, um—yeah.” The Doctor gulps, then gives in, shoulders sagging. “Yeah. Little bit of traveling. Nothing dangerous, or life-threatening—“ _

_ “More rubbish, I see.” Najia nods, and she’s smiling, but it’s sad. “No, I don’t believe that for a second. But she’s an adult, isn’t she? She can make her own choices.” _

_ “I mean—“ the Doctor shrugs, as if she agrees but doesn’t exactly want to go against her. “She can, but—“ _

_ “But you have my number if you need it,” Najia tells her firmly, and the Doctor stiffens, then nods. “Just—keep her safe, will you Doctor? She’s important to me. More than you know.” _

_ “Oh no, Najia.” This time it’s the Doctor gaze hat’s sad, wistful. “I know. Believe me. I know.” _

She stares at the numbers, and tries to make herself move. There’s a phone, old-fashioned with a cord and everything, just off of her right hand. Within easy reach.

She can’t make herself do it.

“You have to,” she tells the screen, which doesn’t make it any easier, but it cements the cold, unavoidable fact.

She has to. She owes it to Najia.

In one swift movement, before she can think about it any longer, she snatches the phone to her ear and presses the number on the screen. It rings immediately, tinny and distant, and she catches her breath, holds it.

It keeps ringing. And ringing. And she’s still holding her breath, hearts thumping in her chest, and right as it gets to the point where maybe, she thinks, she won’t answer, there’s a click on the other end.

“Hello?”

Selfishly, the Doctor’s hearts sink.

“Hi, Yaz’s mum,” she says carefully, maybe too careful but she can’t tell. “It’s the Doctor.”

“It’s Najia,” Najia says. There’s an edge to her voice already. “Is Yaz alright?”

_ Too careful, _ the Doctor thinks. Six words in, and she’s given the game away. Slowly, she closes her eyes.

“Physically, she’s perfectly fine, I promise.” It’s simultaneously the best and worst ways to say it. 

_ She’s not dead, but— _

“Physically,” Najia repeats. There’s a strain to her tone, barely wrought control. “What does that mean, physically? Doctor, what are you trying to tell me?”

“I—“ she doesn’t know how to say it. It’s too much to sum up in a single sentence. Or rather, it’s safer to explain in its entirety, to slot the enormous mistake sitting underneath it all into context and explanation. Round off the edges.

She’s cowardly, is the heart of it.

“It’s a long story,” she says. “Do you have time?”

“Of course I have  _ time _ ,” she growls, and the Doctor winces.

“Right, right,” she mutters, and presses her free hand against the console, leaning against it. “Okay, let me explain—“

She tells her everything. Lays it all out, the Tzanhani and the memory wipe and the war, keeping her own involvement down to a minimum, and she ends on the most pertinent information of all.

“So she remembers nothing?” Najia whispers once she’s finished. Her anger and worry have long since died into dull, horrified acceptance. “Nothing at all?”

The Doctor sags against the console and pinches her nose. She’s done this kind of thing before, with other mothers. Dozens of times. 

It never gets easier.

“Yes. Nothing.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.” Outrage flickers in Najia’s voice, admirable and useless, like thunder without rain. “Her memories can’t just be  _ gone _ , you can’t just rid somebody of—“

“They are,” the Doctor says shortly, then realizes just how she sounds and reels it back. No use getting angry, especially when it’s not Najia she’s angry at, but the guilt that Najia’s denial is making her dwell on, the pit in her stomach and the prickling on the back of her neck. “I’m sorry, Najia. I’m so, so sorry. But there’s a difference between covering up memories and scooping them out completely. This one is the latter.”

“But that’s—“ her voice twists and the Doctor flinches, because this is the reaction she’s been waiting for. The anguish, wild and messy and cruel. “That’s her  _ life _ , Doctor! They’ve taken her life, and—and—“

Her voice drops off abruptly. For a long moment, only her breathing can be heard over the line, shallow and harsh.

“It’s because she traveled with you, isn’t it?” Najia whispers, and the Doctor knew this was coming anyway but  _ oh _ it hurts every time. “It’s because she went off with you, this never would have happened if she stayed—“

“I know,” the Doctor says. The only response is a laugh, thick with tears.

“Do you really?” Najia asks. Her voice is high, nearing hysterical. “Do you Doctor? Because you said you do but you said you’d keep her safe too, and now I don’t know what to believe.”

It’s funny how, even at the age of 3000, a mother’s guilt can hit just as hard.

“I do know,” she says in a low voice. She’s gripping the phone tight, she realizes, so tight it’s hurting her hand. “I know, Najia, and believe me, I’ll do everything to make this right, to help her—“

“Bring her home.”

The Doctor stops. “Huh?”

“You heard me.” Her voice is ice cold, flat. “Bring her home. Back where she needs to be. With her family, and people who care about her—“ the Doctor winces— “and where we can make sure she’s okay. Because I don’t trust you anymore.”

_ That’s fair _ , the Doctor thinks. She swallows nervously, sucks in a breath, and lets it out in a sigh.

“She doesn’t want to.”

“What?” Now it’s Najia’s turn to be nonplussed. The Doctor doesn’t immediately answer.

“What do you mean, she doesn’t want to?”

“I mean—“ the Doctor hesitates, then rubs the bridge of her nose. She’s getting a headache, she thinks. “I asked her if she would like to. She refused.”

“I don’t—“ there’s a hurt in Najia’s voice that the Doctor recognizes all too well.

“I think it’s just too much,” she hurries to reassure. “She didn’t realize she had a family, see, and I think she’s still trying to put things together, to figure herself out. I don’t think she means forever. She just needs time.”

She bites her tongue on this and waits for a response. It’s not long in coming. There’s silence, for a few moments, and then a sigh, heavy enough to break the Doctor’s hearts all over again.

“I suppose it’s her choice then, isn’t it?” Her voice is small and defeated. The Doctor feels that same echo in her chest. “And forcing her will just make things worse?”

The Doctor hesitates. It seems too cruel to agree directly, but—

“It’s best to be careful,” she says. “These things—the mind, memory—can be delicate.”

Another pause on the other end.

“Fine.” The word is a harsh sigh. “Fine, Doctor, if it’s her choice—but I don’t like it. I don’t like her staying there with you, and I don’t know if I agree that it’s the best choice. But I won’t push her. She’s never taken too kindly to that.”

Despite herself, the Doctor stifles a laugh. She’s surprised to find it coated in tears. “Oh, yeah. I’ve learned that lesson.”

“Good.” There’s vindictive satisfaction in her tone. “And Doctor?”

“Yeah?”

“If she gets hurt again—and I don’t care how, or whose fault it is—I will rip you to pieces, personally.”

“Um.” The Doctor swallows. It’s stupid, she thinks, to be scared of a mum. But it’s never stopped her before. 

And it’s not as if she doesn’t deserve it.

“Honestly, Najia?” she says. “That’s assuming I don’t do it myself.”

——————

_ There are rockets. _

_ She’s standing in an open field, which is the worst place to stand in a rocket barrage, and she sucks in a breath, shrinks into her flak jacket, only to realize she’s not wearing it. She’s just in dirty old olive drab, no rifle and no helmet, and the wind whips her hair. It’s down and she doesn’t know why, and furthermore she doesn’t know why she isn’t wearing a helmet, when any second the lights she sees arcing through the sky will slam down, and shrapnel will fly, and she’ll just be stuck her, completely unprotected— _

Yasmin wakes up in a cold sweat.

She moves to a sitting position slowly, achingly, though really nothing aches. She looks around the room, heart caught in her throat for no reason, until the light adjusts and she can begin to make out shadows. Once she does, she calms down. 

It’s just a room. Her room, though she doesn’t entirely believe it, with a chest of drawers and a chair for reading and her own bed with a fluffy blanket. The only oddity is the grimy gear sitting in a corner, and she stares at it for a long moment, a sick feeling dragging at her stomach.

She’s not sure why, since none of it is relevant anymore. She doesn’t need a flak jacket, or a helmet or kneepads or a rifle, nor does she need the filthy olive green blouse and trousers she’d kicked off and tossed on top of the mess. The only thing sitting semi-organized is the pair of boots, which she’d thoughtlessly straightened and stuffed her socks over, to prevent scorpions and spiders from crawling in.

Though of course, there are none of those here. At least, she doesn’t think so.

“Stupid,” she mutters under her breath, and kicks the blanket off, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She glances once more at her gear, and again that odd dread sinks through her. As if she doesn’t want to be reminded. No—as if she doesn’t want to be sent back. And it’s a ridiculous thought, but it falls into the strange bureaucracy of the army, the blanket rules and regulations which they were at any one time either exploiting or being exploited by. The rules which said one had to have six hours of sleep before being sent out on patrol, but never specified if those six hours had to be continuous. The rules which said that one had to have full gear before being sent up to the line, but never specified if that gear had to be in working condition.

It’s this last one Yasmin has in mind as she eyes her gear, and though she knows it’s absolutely illogical, it tugs at her mind regardless. As if any second her commander could burst in, demand she get dressed, and push her out the door, back to that hill, back to that bunker.

As if this is the dream after all.

She shudders and studiously ignores the gear as she stands and makes her way to the door, to the hallway. Once she’s out there, however, she’s no idea where to go. She doesn’t even know her way around the place, never mind which places she would actually go. There’s the console room, which she doesn’t particularly see the point of going to, and the medbay, and then there’s—

The kitchens. And as soon as she thinks it, Yasmin realizes that she’s actually rather hungry.

“Right,” she whispers to herself. “Kitchens it is.”

She sets off down the hallway, and hopes the TARDIS knows where she’s going.

As it turns out, she does. 

The TARDIS doesn’t take five minutes to lead Yasmin to the kitchens, and she enters without a second thought, only to immediately realize that she’s not alone.

The older man—Graham—turns to the door, spreading knife in hand, and smiles.

“Hello, cockle. Had a good sleep?”

Yasmin doesn’t know what to say. There’s a heavy awkwardness sitting in the air, though Graham doesn’t seem to feel it. Then it occurs to her that perhaps it’s just on her side. Her embarrassment grows. She simply nods.

“Well, that’s good.” He turns back to the counter, to the two slices of bread layered with meats and cheese, then seems to think of something and turns back to her. “Were you hungry? Want me to fix you a sandwich?”

“Uh—” in truth, Yasmin would like that very much. She’s never made a sandwich, only eaten the occasional stale one in the army, and she’s not sure what she likes. She wonders if Graham knows. “If you don’t mind.”

“‘Course I don’t.” He turns once more to his own, and with careless finesse, slaps the two slices together, meat and cheese and all. Then he cuts a rough diagonal through it, and dumps it on a nearby plate.

“Give me five minutes, I’ll blow any sandwich you’ve had out of the water.”

Yasmin thinks back to stale bread and rubbery meat products pried out of cans, covered in packets of flavor-goo, which ironically, don’t add much flavor. She’s smiling before she thinks about it. “I don’t doubt it.”

Graham chuckles at this as he tosses two more slices of bread onto the counter, and reaches for a packet of deli meat. Without looking, he jabs the knife towards Yasmin. “I’m actually the best at cooking on this ship, though that’s mainly because none of you lot can actually cook. The Doctor tried once, and then we had to ban her from the kitchen. She weren’t happy about that, being banned from her own kitchen.”

He shakes his head and chuckles again, and Yasmin smiles along with it, only to realize halfway through that she’s actually smiling.

It’s a nice feeling.

He isn’t lying about his promise; five minutes later he slides a plate towards her, then picks up his own and tilts his head towards the table.

“Care to sit?”

 Yasmin looks at the table. It’s a blue oval, made of some material she can’t identify. There are more than enough chairs. She hesitates. When she looks at Graham, he gives her a kind wink.

“You know, I heard sandwiches taste better with company.”

Yasmin nods.

They seat themselves sort of across from each other, enough distance that it’s not overbearing, and Yasmin watches Graham pick up his sandwich before she picks her own up. They eat in silence for a few moments, and Yasmin can’t help but appreciate that Graham is right; he does know how to make a mean sandwich. It’s worlds away from any food she’s tasted in the army, and she eats fast, too fast at first to realize that Graham is watching her.

She glances up about halfway through and stops. He’s looking at her, a twinkle in his eye, and though his expression contains no judgment she lowers her sandwich anyway, embarrassed. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, and he shakes his head.

“No need,” he says. There’s a glint of amusement in his eye. “The Doctor told us you were in the army. Never served myself, but I had a few bus driver buddies who did and the number one they complained about was the food. Well, not the number  _ one _ thing, but pretty damn close.”

Yasmin lowers her sandwich all the way to her plate. “Bus driver buddies?”

A glimpse of surprise he doesn’t quite manage to hide crosses Graham’s face, but then he very visibly shakes it away. “Sorry, forgot about that.” He taps the side of his head. “Yep, I was a bus driver once. Best job there is, you ask me. Long as you can deal with the rude folk.”

Yasmin nods. When she thinks of a bus, she thinks of the rattling old vehicle that transported them to the line. A shuttle, more like. She wonders if he drove something like that, but doesn’t want to ask. Instead she picks up her sandwich and finishes it in silence.

She expects him to leave when he finishes—before she does, surprisingly—but he doesn’t. Instead he gets up, goes over to the counter, and starts fiddling with what Yasmin guesses to be a kettle. He glances over, and sees her watching.

“Fancy a cup of tea?”

Yasmin has no idea what tea is, but it sounds familiar. She nods, mainly out of politeness.

He putters around, getting cups and spoons and sugar until the kettle starts to sing, then quickly serves up two cups, one of which he passes to her as he sits down.

“Thank you.” She peers inside, and frowns at the little bag. “What’s that supposed to do?”

When she looks up, Graham is staring. Immediately she flushes, hot embarrassment prickling up her spine. She’s supposed to know, it seems like, only she doesn’t. She looks down again, and watches a dark stain seep from the bag into the water.

“It’s a teabag,” he says, and she looks up again. “Puts the flavor in it. Sorry, I forget you don’t know all this stuff.”

He mouth twists in apology and for a moment he just looks at her. She glances again at the liquid; it’s now almost all dark.

“Yaz, if you don’t mind me asking—”

Her head jerks up, and she’s correcting him before she thinks. “Yasmin, actually.”

He stops, only for a second, and his lips purse. “Yasmin, then. If you don’t mind me askin—”

He leans forward, across the table. There’s deep sympathy in his eyes, and none of the expectation that the Doctor’s had contained. In a way, they’re almost easier to look in.

“Are you okay? I mean, I know you went through some stuff, and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but—you know you can come to me if you need to, right? Might not be your grandad, but I reckon I can do the job in a pinch.”

He smiles in a rather self-deprecating way as he finishes, and she stares, reeling. A lump rises in her throat. It’s all this  _ care _ thrown in her direction, as if she’s worth more than a gun and a uniform. As if her general wellbeing is actually  _ important _ , and not only in connection to how many guard shifts she can serve or how many patrols she can go on. Feeding her a sandwich because she’s hungry, not because she needs enough calories to make it through the next ruck march.

She doesn’t know what to say, and she knows the second she opens her mouth she won’t be able to speak. She nods numbly, and looks once more at her tea, the darkness swirling around the bag. 

There’s liquid gathering in the corners of her eyes. Funny how often that keeps happening.

Graham wisely doesn’t say anything more. She can feel his eyes on her for a few moments longer, but then she hears the merciful clink of a spoon on glass, and she uses his distraction as cover to wipe her eyes. Then she sneaks a glance out of the corner of her vision, watches him sip his tea, and does the same. It’s piping hot, sweet, and scalds her throat as it goes down.

She likes it, she decides.

They sit in silence a few minutes longer, until Yasmin starts to feel the pressure of conversation slide back in. She gets the feeling that Graham is comfortable with this, the easy quiet, but she’s got the age old sense of discomfort that comes from sitting in the presence of a stranger. Well, technically not a stranger, but— 

“How did you learn Tzanhani?” It’s the first question that comes to her head and therefore the first thing she blurts out, halfway through her cup. Graham looks up, and confusion flashes across his face. 

“Love, I’m speakin English.”

“English?” She frowns, and opens her mouth to say something when a voice behind her chimes in.

“It’s the TARDIS translation circuit.”

Yasmin whirls around at the Doctor’s voice, spoon clattering against the table. 

“What’s that?” she demands, a sudden unease crawling up her spine. She glances at Graham once more, who looks just as confused as she does.

“Hang on, we’re all speaking different languages?” he asks, and the Doctor gives him a rebuking look.

“Graham, I’ve explained this to you all before.” She clucks her tongue, and moves into the kitchen, setting up against the counter with her arms crossed. Her eyes dart to Yasmin, then quickly fall back to Graham. “Well, you and Ryan. The TARDIS translates any language, so we don’t have to worry about misunderstandings. Do you really think I bother speaking English?”

“You don’t speak English?” Graham exclaims. The Doctor just shrugs.

“Don’t like the tenses. Plus I have a slight accent, if I’m being honest.” She makes a face. Yasmin stares at her, that same nameless apprehension flooding her stomach. The sensation of everything familiar being swept out from under her feet. Sitting with people, talking, and they’re not even speaking in the same language.

“But—” she starts to protest, and then stops because she doesn’t know what she’s protesting against. “Do I know English?”

It falls out almost childishly, like all the kids in class have gotten two biscuits whereas she’s only gotten one. She wants English, she realizes, and it seems impossibly unfair that she’s not speaking it. 

“Uh—” the Doctor stumbles. “I don’t know, actually, Yasmin. Would you like to try? I can turn off the TARDIS translation circuit.”

“You can do that?” Graham’s faint indignation echoes behind her, and she can tell by the sound of it she’s not entirely over the entire revelation. She ignores it and nods, even as an excited apprehension fills her. What if she can’t speak it?

“Sure I can.” The Doctor reaches up and snaps her fingers. Then she makes a face again, and starts speaking.

“Ugh, first time I’ve spoken English since I’ve met you lot. I can’t believe this is the one your century chooses to make international.” Her voice has changed, Yasmin notices immediately. There’s an undefinable lilt to her tone, and the words are all different, different from anything Yasmin’s ever heard. 

But she understands her. 

“I understand you,” she says, and hears a gasp behind her. 

“Oh my god, Yaz—you’re speaking a different language!” He’s got that same strange language the Doctor is speaking, but a different, thicker accent and when she swivels in her seat, he’s staring at her like her head’s been lopped off.

“I’m speaking Tzanhani,” she says, but it’s clear he doesn’t understand her.

“Do you want to try English, Yasmin?” the Doctor asks in strangely accented Tzanhani. Yasmin turns to her, and frowns, concentrating. Trying to pluck out words in her head.

“Am I...speaking English?” she asks. The Doctor’s face breaks into a grin.

“Brilliant, Yasmin! You’ve still got it!” Her grin is absolutely splitting her face, and something flutters in Yasmin’s stomach. Before she knows it she’s grinning as well, flushed with success and something more.

She’s not sure how she’s got it; she’s not sure where she pulls the words from but they come. A little creaky, as if pulled from a childhood she doesn’t remember, but she’s excited for them all the same. Like she’s just won the second biscuit.

When she glances at Graham, he’s got a smile as well, and a strange look on his face—not exactly negative, but curious. He tilts his head, regarding her.

“Bit odd hearing you with that accent,” he says, and she frowns.

“Accent?”

“You’ve got an accent, Yasmin,” the Doctor interrupts. “Tzanhani accent, southern quadrant, sounds to me. Never heard it in English.”

She chuckles as if it’s amusing, but Yasmin’s frown deepens. She doesn’t want an accent. She wants good, proper English, and Tzanhani might be comforting in its familiarity but if it comes from the army she wants it gone, scrubbed away like the rest of her memories.

“I want to speak English from now on,” she says, a tad slow, and the Doctor nods in solemn agreement.

“We can keep the translation circuit off, until you get used to it,” she says. “Wouldn’t hurt for me to work on my accent either.”

She grimaces as she says it, but there’s something about the admission that makes Yasmin feel better. She’s not the only one with an accent anymore. She wonders if the Doctor said that on purpose, then decides it doesn’t matter.

“Okay,” she says, then hesitates, and glances to her now-cold tea. “Um, what do we do now?”

The Doctor smiles, broad, contagious. “Actually, I thought I could show you something.”

————-

They meet her in the console room not twenty minutes later, dressed in what Yasmin supposes to be normal clothes. She’s got strange, stiff blue trousers, cuffed at the bottom, a button up shirt, and trainers, all picked out by the TARDIS. Or at least, they were on her bed when she arrived, and she chooses not to question it.

Her rifle and gear still eyes her in the corner and she studiously ignores it.

“Where are we going, Doc?” Graham asks, his hand loosely gripping the underside of the console. Yasmin wonders if she should be holding onto something as well.

The Doctor slams a level down and pirouttes to the other side, a flash of swirling coat and hair. “Old place! New memories. Thought you might like this one, Yasmin.”

The ship lurches and Yasmin sees Ryan lunge for a handhold, so she does too. They keep tight grips as the ship seems to tumble through—she doesn’t even know what—before landing with a thump and a vaguely familiar wheeze. The others ungrip and she does too, as the Doctor bounds for the doors.

“The hanging gardens of Rhourus!” The Doctor flings open the doors with dramatic aplomb, and steps out onto cropped green grass. Yasmin follows, stepping out with a slight trepidation that grows as she sees where they are.

It’s the middle of space. Or rather, not the middle of space, for they’re slung between two planets, but they’re standing on an asteroid carpeted in flora, space stretching out before them. It’s breathtaking.

It’s dizzying.

“Where—what is this?” she asks as Ryan and Graham tumble out behind her, look around with a slight disinterest that tells her they’ve been here before. The Doctor turns, and her face falls at whatever it is she sees on Yasmin’s face. Or rather, whatever it is she doesn’t.

“The—hanging gardens of Rhourus,” she says again, voice faltering slightly. “I, uh, thought you might like to see something cool. This is the best view of the galaxy in the entire system.”

“Oh.” Yasmin looks around, spots a bench strategically situated to look out over the edge. The distant view sparkles with stars and spiraling nebulas. It’s perfectly, peacefully silent. 

The bench seats two people, she thinks idly. They’d have to take turns. For no reason at all, her imagination briefly flashes to herself and the Doctor, sitting close but not together, and she wonders if that ever happened. She doesn’t think so. It has the trace of fantasy, not memory.

It’s not as vibrant as that dream of the orchard, the too-closeness and the unspoken words hanging in the air, faces inches apart— 

“How can we breath?” she asks, and when she looks back to the Doctor, she catches a flicker of disappointment, not quite fast enough to miss. Irritation prickles over her skin.

Suddenly, she knows why they’re there.

“Oxygen bubble,” the Doctor says, but she’s watching Yasmin too closely, waiting for a reaction Yasmin doesn’t want to give. It’s beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, and though half of her wants to stay, the other half wants to stomp inside the TARDIS and slam the door.

Yaz must have loved it here. Yasmin can practically see it, marked all over the grass and the flowers and the bench like dirty fingerprints. Irritation once more rises in her gut at the thought.  _ What is this? _ she wants to scream.  _ A nostalgia tour? _ A turn back the clocks, crank a dial that turns Yasmin into Yaz, can’t scoop the memories back in but maybe they can repot the same ones.

She doesn’t like it.

“What do you think?” the Doctor asks, her gaze intent and hopeful and falling all at the same time, and a flash of petulance rises in Yasmin’s throat.

“I’m scared of heights,” she says, and her eyes linger on the edge just to make that point. The lie is obvious, or it must be, but the Doctor gives no sign. She swallows once then nods, disappointed.

“Sorry about that,” she mutters, and sticks her hands abashedly into her pockets. “Want to go back inside?”

“Yeah,” Yasmin says, and doesn’t wait for the others to move, but turns around and steps inside herself.

—————-

The Doctor doesn’t bring it up, and she doesn’t take them anywhere for the next few days. They drift aimlessly in the TARDIS, or at least Yasmin thinks they’re drifting. She doesn’t really know. She drifts too, wandering from thing to thing with no real goal in mind. No idea of what she’s meant to do. 

What  _ are _ people meant to do?

She asks Ryan this one day when he invites her to play Call of Duty. It’s become a thing with them, a few hours here and there in the game room after Ryan awkwardly extended an invitation, then tripped over himself with horrified mortification when she saw what the game was about.

“It’s just for fun,” he said, then winced and backtracked. ‘I mean it’s not  _ fun _ , because war is awful and you should never understate it but it’s just like—”

She cut him off by grabbing a control and thumping down on the sofa. “How does it work?”

Videogames don’t scare Yasmin. Gunshots don’t scare her either. She’s used to the sound of them, from shooting ranges and field exercises, leapfrogging across a field in carefully timed spurts of fire. The noises from the television are tinny and distant and fake, and nothing about them screams danger.

Loud booms scare Yasmin, and the alarms that go off sometimes, often when the Doctor is trying to fix something and triggers something she shouldn’t have. The sirens are the worst, loud and blaring and terribly urgent, and she doesn’t tell the Doctor, but she hates them.

She’s not traumatized, not really. She’s just...affected.

“Ryan?” she asks when they’re two hours deep into mowing down bad guys and she’s, as expected, losing. A videogame rifle is entirely different from the rifle that’s still sitting in her room, grimy and unused. She doesn’t look at it when she goes by.

“Hmm?” His eyes don’t move from the screen.

“What do people do with their lives?”

This stops him. She sees his fingers pause, then press the stop button.The screen freezes, and he looks over at her.

“What do you mean, do with your life?”

Yasmin hesitates. She opens her mouth, and the words  _ what am I supposed to do now? _ well on her tongue, but she doesn’t say them. It’s not for other people to decide, she knows. She’s supposed to figure that out, only she doesn’t know where to start.

“I mean,” she gestures vaguely between them. “What do people normally do? Like, on earth? What do you do?”

“Uh…” he opens his mouth, then closes it again and purses his lips, thoughtful. “Well, I mean right now I’m travelin with the Doctor. But before that I was studying for my NVQ. I want to be a mechanic.”

“A mechanic.” Yasmin nods. It sounds like a good job, interesting even, though maybe not for her. They went to army mechanics when their vehicles broke down, sat around in the hot sun—a rare reprieve, if a shadeless one—and watched them work, men and women in grungy, oil smeared olive drab sweating over open hoods and engines. She wonders if that’s what Ryan’s picturing. She doesn’t think so. 

“That sounds cool,” she says, and he smiles.

“Thanks. Why’d you ask, though?”

Yasmin shrugs. “I dunno. Just trying to figure stuff out, I guess.”

Ryan nods, still watching her. “Your accent’s gotten better, by the way. Sheffield slipping through.”

He grins, and she grins back, tentative. The English is harder, and a little painstaking, but it’s become smoother over time. She still dreams in Tzahani, and more often than not, she dreams of the army, of the base, of the rockets. 

Sometimes, though, she dreams of other things. Of a flat block and a bulky uniform and fluorescent vest, of people she can almost recognize but not quite. Smeary, dreary days sitting in a blue and white car, waiting for something to happen. 

Sometimes, she dreams of an orchard.

“Do you still want to be a police officer?”

Ryan’s voice slices neatly through her thoughts and she glances at him, startled.

“Uh—”

Police. Protecting people. Bulky uniforms and boots and slinging around an authoritative voice like she’s the one in charge.

_ “You’ll be protecting the Tzanhani empire,” the man had said on the first day, to the youths fidgeting in rows in a wide room. “Protecting its people, protecting its land—” _

“I don’t think so,” she answers, and Ryan nods like this is expected.

“Course,” he says, and turns back to the television, presses a button. The screen unfreezes, and tinny gunfire rings out. “Well, you’ve got time. You’re only twenty.”

“Yeah,” Yasmin agrees, and she focuses on the screen as well, only to realize she’s already dead. Again.

—————-

The next place the Doctor takes them is earth, only it’s apparently not the time period they know. It’s 1978, Italy, and the Doctor leads them straight to a little cafe not two blocks down from where they parked, glancing curiously at Yasmin every once and a while as she looks around, staring at the people and buildings and cars.

It’s overwhelming. It’s  _ hers _ , her own planet and people, so vibrantly alive it almost hurts to look at. There are men and women and even children, all dressed in strange fashion with funny haircuts, and she can’t stop staring.

“Doing okay, Yasmin?” The Doctor steps close to her, twines their fingers together, and Yasmin almost pulls away out of surprise. She doesn’t though, and a beat later the awkwardness passes into a nice normalcy and a strange fluttering feeling, the kind of which she’s grown used around the Doctor. She’s no word for it, but it’s certainly not unpleasant.

“Yeah, I think.” She glances around again, stares at a man bicycling past with a brightly-colored, flowing shirt, then tears her eyes away and back to the Doctor. “Where are we going?”

The Doctor smiles. “Best gelato on earth!”

With that she picks up the pace a little, tugging Yasmin along before she has the chance to ask what a gelato is. A gelato turns out to be something they buy from a charming little store—“A cafe”, Graham explains—full of round tables and dark wood walls and checkered tablecloths. The Doctor steps up to the counter first, then hesitates and turns to Yasmin. 

“Want me to explain the flavors?” she asks, and points to the glass. When Yasmin peers inside, she spots tubs of a fluffy, creamy substance, each one a different muted color. She reads the placards slowly, sounds out  _ chocolate _ and  _ vanilla _ and  _ pistachio _ and a dozen others. 

“No, I’m fine,” she says, and presses her fingers up against the glass until the man behind the counter clucks in disapproval. “Did I like this stuff?”

The Doctor scoffs in disbelief. “Yasmin, everybody likes ice cream. Or gelato, which is this particular type. Want me to order for you?”

Immediately, a familiar irritation rises up in her.  _ Order for her _ undoubtedly means  _ order Yaz’s favorite _ of which Yasmin has no idea what that might be. Half of her wants to find out, but all of a sudden she’s feeling petulant again.

“No,” she says shortly, and points at a flavor she’s definitely heard of. “I’ll have the chocolate, thanks.”

The man behind the counter nods and dips a spoon into the tub and as Yasmin watches, she feels the Doctor’s eyes upon her. She ignores it.

They seat themselves outside, since it’s warm but not too warm, and the sun shining high but not exactly beating down. Yasmin dips a spoon into her own cup as she listens to Ryan josh Graham about his choice of pistachio, which Graham immediately jumps in to valiantly defend. 

“It’s a  _ classic _ ,” he complains, and Yasmin, chuckling, only notices the Doctor is still watching her when she brings her own spoon to her mouth.

It’s the best thing she’s ever tasted, hands down. She stifles a gasp, and immediately all eyes fall to her, the argument instantly forgotten. Yasmin flushes immediately and shrinks back, her gaze darting between the three.

“What?” she asks defensively, and sets her cup down on the table. The Doctor has a smile playing at her lips, excited and knowing, as if she had been waiting for this exact reaction. Graham and Ryan just look surprised, but after a moment, slow smiles begin to creep up their faces as well.

“Do you like it?” the Doctor asks. Yasmin looks to her, then to the others, and slowly nods.

“Yeah, I think so,” she says, which is a sight underexaggeration. “What is it?”

“Sugar and cream and loads of other stuff,” Graham answers. He takes a bite of his as he speaks, pointedly, and encouraged, Yasmin does the same. “God’s gift to mankind.”

“Alright, it’s just ice cream,” Ryan grumbles, but even he’s got an amused glint in his eye. He takes a bite of his own, a plain white color, and settles back in his chair, as does the Doctor. Her eyes still remain on Yasmin however, and Yasmin can’t decide if she minds or not. She decides to ignore it.

She eats in silence, too busy marveling over the taste and texture to really participate in the conversation, until a particularly raucous laugh has her looking up. It’s Ryan, pointing at the Doctor, and when she looks over she finds that the Doctor has somehow managed to get gelato spotted on her nose. 

“Alright, alright,” the Doctor says crossly, and sets her cup down, leaning over the table to scrabble for a napkin. The only one unused is right next to Yasmin, who picks it up without thinking and goes, “Here.”

The Doctor freezes. For a moment, Yasmin doesn’t understand why. Then it clicks, and she goes bright red.

The Doctor is leaning over the table, her face just close enough to Yasmin’s outstretched hand that it doesn’t look as if she’s gone to hand the napkin to her. It looks as if she’s gone to dab the spot away, only she hasn’t because that’s not who they are. She doesn’t think.

_ Leaning close to the Doctor with her handkerchief outstretched, the air heavy with the fragrance of that unidentifiable fruit, and she’s so close to just—  _

“Here.” Yasmin indicates with the napkin, fluttering it a bit for the Doctor to take. She does, her face carefully unreadable, and that shouldn’t bother Yasmin but it does anyway. She looks back to her gelato and finds the last bit melted, spreading slowly over the bottom of the paper cup.

Not that she’s much of an appetite anymore, anyway.

“Did you like the chocolate?” Ryan asks, and she looks up, then nods.

“Yeah. It was different from what I expected.”

“You can try a different one next time, if you’d like,” the Doctor jumps in, some of that eagerness returning to her voice. “There’s loads of flavors, think I’ve tried about every one. You used to like the—”

And then she falls silent, biting off the sentence as if it’s taboo. It’s not, even, but just the almost-delivery is enough to twist Yasmin’s stomach with a guilt she knows she doesn’t deserve, and an expectation she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want to care what Yaz’s favorite flavor was, even though part of her does. She wants the details, wants the information, but she can’t figure out a way to take it without the sensation of stealing.

It’s not fair. That’s what she always comes back to, again and again. It’s not fair.

“It’s kind of chilly, isn’t it?” she says, even though it’s not, and it takes the others a beat but then they hurriedly agree.

“Back to the TARDIS then, shall we?” The Doctor claps her hands and launches to her feet. The others follow, dumping cups of half-melted gelato in the rubbish bin.

They don’t talk much on the way back.

——————-

It’s another two weeks before the Doctor takes them anywhere else. In between, Yasmin goes back to wandering. She plays Call of Duty with Ryan, goes through photographs with the Doctor and sometimes Graham, ignores the grimy gear sitting in her room, and attempts to make her own sandwiches. 

It’s alright, but it’s not enough.

The problem is, she doesn’t know what else there is to do. She doesn’t know what she wants, and she doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be, and she doesn’t know who she’s meant to ask. Ryan doesn’t seem to know, nor does Graham when she asks him once over photographs, and the Doctor says she can be whoever she wants, but whenever Yasmin looks in her eyes, she sees a different answer.

It’s complicated, she’s starting to think, and she doesn’t particularly like it.

And the Doctor makes things worse, with her constant puppy-dog eyes and her delicate manner, tiptoeing around Yasmin as if she’s a patient and not a person. Like she’s nursing her back to health, not helping her figure things out. It’s frustrating, and slightly condescending, and Yasmin would hate her if she didn’t like her so much.

_ That’s _ the very worst bit of it; the liking part. Because the Doctor, despite her kid gloves, is kind and funny and a little bit goofy, with a million fascinating facts about the universe and a love for each one that shines through the very core of her being. Yasmin  _ likes _ her, and wants to be around her in a way that’s entirely confusing, even when she’s being annoyingly overbearing. 

Like now.

“You’ll like this one, Yasmin!” The Doctor is flying around the console, pressing buttons and jamming levers as the others hold on for dear life, clutching pillars and other available objects. 

“What is it?” Yasmin calls as the TARDIS thumps to a landing.

“Surprise!” the Doctor calls, and lunges towards the doors, leaving the others to follow. She throws them open and steps out into a place Yasmin can’t see much of, until she steps out behind her, and stops.

There are rows of trees stretching off into the distance, heavy with golden fruit. Above, the sky is pale, nearly colorless.

It’s the orchard.

Yasmin takes a step back, and nearly falls into Ryan and Graham. 

“I’m not going here,” she says. There’s a strange feeling twisting her stomach, that too-familiar fluttering turned to anxiety and quickly burgeoning anger because it’s not fair, it’s not  _ fair _ that the Doctor do this to her—

She turns around, ducks under Ryan’s arm, and flees back inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor follows her; she can hear her footsteps, the hurried “let me go after her”, and moments later an urgent “Yasmin!”. She doesn’t answer it, but goes straight for the hallway, rounds two corners, and stops in front of the door to her room. She flings it open and bursts inside, only to freeze.

Because her gear is gone. 

Her heart drops like a stone; remembered panic, a year of ingrained reactions screaming at her,  _ you’re dead _ . What was the punishment for losing gear, for losing a rifle? Jail time, probably, after being raked over the coals. Her heart thumps, once, and then she remembers that she’s not in the army, she hasn’t been in the army for weeks now, and she won’t be punished.

And then she gets angry.

She spins around just as the Doctor arrives in her doorway and lunges for her.

“You!” Her finger jams into her chest, sending them both barreling out the door, the Doctor out of sheer surprise, Yasmin out of pure fury. “You  _ took _ my gear! What did you do with it? You can’t just steal somebody’s weapon, I could—”

_ Get in trouble _ . She doesn’t say that. She just cuts off, glowing in outrage, the Doctor pressed against the wall with her mouth open in shock.

“I—I—” she stutters. “I had the TARDIS get rid of it. I’m sorry, I just don’t like guns, I thought—”

“You didn’t!” Yasmin shouts. “You didn’t think, you didn’t even ask me if I wanted that stuff—”

“Do you?” the Doctor asks, open confusion on her face. Yasmin stops, and the Doctor takes the opening. “Yasmin, I thought you wanted to leave that all behind. That you didn’t want—”

“You don’t know what I want!” Tears are springing in her eyes out of sheer frustration. “You keep trying to push me into what you think I want, but you’ve no idea, do you? You just want Yaz back, that’s all!”

She slips into Tzanhani somewhere in the middle, and notices only when she finishes. The realization only makes her feel worse. The Doctor is gaping at her now, mouth hanging and eyes big as saucers, horrified.

“I don’t—” she shakes her head but it’s weak, unconvincing. “That’s not it at all. You  _ are _ Yaz—”

“I’m not!” Yasmin steps backwards, tossing her hands in frustration. “I’m not, that’s what you don’t get! I don’t know what kind of person I am, and you expect me to just jump into a dead girl’s skin!”

This hurts. She can see it in the Doctor’s eyes, her slight flinch at the word  _ dead _ . She shakes her head again weakly.

“I didn’t mean,” she says numbly. “I’m not trying to force you—”

“Yeah?” Yasmin crosses her arms, quashing the guilty flutter in her chest with vindictive triumph. It doesn’t entirely work. “Then why do you keep taking me to those places? Yaz’s favorite asteroid, and Yaz’s favorite ice cream, and Yaz’s—”

“Because I thought you’d want to know!” the Doctor shouts, so loud it stuns Yasmin into silence. The Doctor runs a hand raggedly through her hair, then continues. 

“I thought it might help. I thought that—that by showing you those places, it would show you who you used to be, the kinds of things you’d liked. That it would show you who you are.”

“I don’t even know who I am,” Yasmin whispers, and she can’t help a feeling of deja vu. “It’s not fair you think you know better than me.”

The Doctor sighs, long and slow and defeated. “Maybe you’re right,” she admits. “That isn’t fair of me, is it? Forcing a set of expectations on you.”

She studies Yasmin for a second, eyes traveling over her face, and then she takes in a breath, fortifying. There’s a new sense of admission in her eyes, and a trace of guilt.

“You’re not Yaz, Yasmin,” she says. “I suppose I knew that, deep down. I just...thought I could fix you. Fix what I’d done.”

“I don’t need fixing,” Yasmin replies. “I just need to figure out who I want to be.”

The Doctor grins, crooked and abashed and a little sad. She’s one second away from palming the back of her neck. “Don’t suppose I could help you with that, could I?”

——————-

They don’t go to the orchard. Instead the Doctor sets the TARDIS floating in the time vortex again, and then she brings Yasmin to the kitchen, and they sit down and have a talk. It’s not a particularly easy one, but by the end of it they come to an idea that they think might, maybe, help.

It’s just Yasmin and the Doctor this time, stepping out of the TARDIS and into an ice cream shop situated across a small bookstore-cafe in 2053. They get soft serve, which the Doctor promises her to be a whole other world, and sit in high stools on a counter at the window, at the perfect time of day for the sunlight to hit the glass and render them invisible.

The Doctor doesn’t tell Yasmin what to get, and she chooses pistachio.

They see them about ten minutes into their ice cream, trooping down the street with the fatigued air of tourists who have been walking since morning. They find a table outside the bookstore and sit, the four of them crammed around a tiny square, Graham and Ryan on one side, Yaz and the Doctor on the other.

Yasmin stares. It’s like looking in a mirror, or watching a video of herself, only it’s not, because it’s completely different. Yaz is laughing and open and sometimes coy, with shy glances and occasional strategic hand placements that the Doctor doesn’t seem to notice, until she tosses a careless hand around her shoulder. 

“You’re sure you want this?” the Doctor whispers beside her, and she can feel the tension radiating off in waves. She nods, then glances over, and watches something indescribable dance in the Doctor’s eyes. Sadness maybe, but not quite. Guilt, definitely. 

“I just want to make sure,” she says, and watches the Doctor nod in reluctance. Secretly, she’d rather the Doctor be here more than herself, if only to drive the point home. A side by side comparison, in every sense of the word.

She watches Yaz, and surprises herself by feeling only the smallest pang of jealousy. It’s there, for sure, but it’s not overwhelming, burning through her stomach like coals. She wants all Yaz has sure, but then again, she doesn’t. She wants her own things, and she wants to figure out what that is in her own time.

She glances once more at the Doctor, and wonders if it’s cheating that one of those things be the same. The Doctor is watching Yaz, hazel eyes glistening with tears that have yet to fall, and Yasmin opens her mouth to say something but doesn’t get to it before the Doctor reaches out and wraps her fingers around her hand, giving her palm a squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, then sniffles, just once. Her eyes are across the street, but Yasmin gets the feeling they’re all for her.

“It’s okay,” she answers, and realizes after a beat that it really is. There’s still anger there, and an awful sense of unfairness about the whole thing, but it’s blanketed by the sense of relief that comes with letting it go. It doesn’t have to hurt, anymore, because it’s over and done. She can find the things she wants, whenever she wants to.

Like right now, maybe.

“You missed your chin on purpose, didn’t you?” she blurts out. The Doctor turns, confusion crinkling her brow.

“Huh?”

“At the orchard,” Yasmin continues, and feels her heart beating fast. Anticipation and breathless hope are fluttering in her stomach. “You went to wipe your chin and you missed it, so I gave you a handkerchief. You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

The Doctor is fully looking at her now, lips parted in surprise. “Uh—”

“You’ve got ice cream on your nose again,” Yasmin lies, with a new boldness that maybe comes from Yaz after all, and before the Doctor can respond she leans in and kisses her.

It’s a short kiss because she’s not  _ that _ bold, but she pulls away breathless, the Doctor staring at her in utter shock.

“Yasmin—”

Yasmin shakes her head. “I’m just trying to figure out what I want,” she says. “Is that okay?”

“Uh—” the Doctor’s mouth hangs open for roughly half a second before she snaps it shut again. “Yes. But only if you’re sure—”

“I am,” Yasmin says, and leans in again, only this time the Doctor meets her halfway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> despite what I said in the above note, I decided to update this because it's been tugging at my mind and I couldn't quite put the idea away. I think it's sort of a messy thing to portray, and I hope I did this well. Also sorry because this is completely unedited, rip
> 
> ALSO these are the last few days to order the fanzine! If you want to, you can find more info here: https://thirteenfanzine.tumblr.com/post/186210201599/new-post-because-tumblr-is-homophobic-but-yall

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, the military historian just jumped out. 
> 
> anyway, like i said, i still dk what this is? mainly just an excuse for me to wax on philosophically, i guess. also, i tried to make this as nuanced as possible considering im talking about like, war and personal morals and police and all that stuff? i hope i managed it? idk. but if you guys made it through all 15,000 messy words of this, serious kudos. serious.


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